The Phoenix and the Dragon
by L'histoire
Summary: Postseries. A series of twelve ficlets based on the lunar calendar, exploring what happens in the after years. Chapter 11: The Year of the Sheep
1. The Year of the Dog

A/N: Since I've run into a bit of a snag with my overly ambitious first fic, _La petite seconde d'éternité_, I decided to amuse myself in the meantime with a series of twelve little episodes dealing with the_after_ of Scryed. Now, since I live in a country where the traditional Chinese lunar calendar is very much _present_, if not the main method of time keeping, I decided it might be fun to play around with it. So, this will be a series of twelve ficlets, each trying to keep to an appointed theme based on the lunar calendar.

I'm not going to launch into an explanation of the insanely complicated system, but here's what I'm making myself work within:

- A given year, identified by the traditional zodiac animals the West has become familiar with (Dog, Dragon, Rooster, Horse, etc.). Animals govern a lot more than years, though, despite what disposable placemats at Americanized Chinese restaurants would have you believe, and they themselves are governed by other things, which leads me to …

- An Earthly Branch. These branches govern particular members of the zodiac, a particular lunar month, and two hours out of the day. I've scrapped the second animal (too complicated!), but have kept the particular lunar month & the "ruling hours" of the day for the main setting of each ficlet.

Since I started writing this in a Year of the Dog (2006), Third Lunar Month (roughly corresponds to April on the Gregorian calendar), that's the beginning of this little cycle of twelve. Since ff dot net apparently doesn't display Chinese characters correctly, I've noted the _kun yomi_ (Japanese reading) and the pinyin of the hanzi-that-will-not-display-correctly.

Disclaimer: I don't own Scryed, I don't own the poetry quoted in each ficlet. Etc. Etc.

_**The Year of the Dog**_

Tatsu/chén. The fifth Earthly Branch. Third Lunar Month. Ruling hours: 7 to 9 am.

Three years after the defeat of Mujo

… _This dog only, waited on,   
Knowing that when the light is gone  
Love remains for shining ...  
_

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "To Flush, My Dog"

* * *

Mimori Kiryu awoke to a face full of battered and dog-eared onionskin pages, the print and diagrams sliding together in a blurry haze. The numbers of her clock announced that it was 7 am, and the low light of morning was barely filtering through the heavy cloud cover. The low, ramshackle buildings scattered outside her window looked more depressing than usual in the haze, and bleary-eyed Mimori sighed, putting her head in her hands. It seemed that every day began and ended like this one – her pillow a textbook, her bed the hard little wooden chair that served as an all-purpose seat-clothes rack-occasional side table. "_Coffee, I need coffee_," was her only coherent thought.

She had thought that her days at HOLD could be long and tedious, but she realized now that those had been the easiest days of her life, sandwiched in between her mad dash for degrees and this … this excuse for a normal life. _Every_ day was a long day now; "Weekend? What's a weekend?" was her new motto. She worked all day, dealing with mostly minor medical issues in her little clinic and teaching some interested students not much younger than her; she read half the night, trying to page through her texts in an attempt to glean from them knowledge she never thought would be terribly practical. Certainly, in all her years of schooling that flew by at an alarming speed, she never thought she'd have to know how to reposition a breech birth in humans, and certainly not in _farm animals_. Still, that drive to be useful, to be needed, to be doing _something_ was strong within her.

The house – or_ cottage_ as she liked to say when she was feeling generous, it made it sound more romantic than the little run-down thing it was – was quiet, and even though the humidity of the summer was a few months off, a week of nothing but rain meant that a musty smell had settled into the old floorboards and every other porous surface in the place. She hadn't slept well in what seemed like years – even when sleep did come fairly easily, she spent the night in a fitful cycle of waking and sleeping – and her outlook seemed bleaker than it had ever been. It was so hard to continue pasting a gracious smile on, day in and day out, hard to continue attempting to be cheerful while ignoring her breaking heart. Or maybe it had broken long ago, and like a phantom limb, was just acting up again ….

She did smile as soon as she saw that the little coffee pot was ready for her to switch on, no bean grinding or filter preparing necessary. Mimori had days – usually those dark days, late at night, when she wondered why she even bothered, why she was here on the Lost Ground, why she still kept the faith - of thinking that Kanami Yuta was her tenuous connection between reality and madness. Mimori smiled a little thinking of the younger girl, strong and wise far beyond her years, who always made sure that Mimori wasn't working herself to death, made sure the coffee was ready to go in the morning and that there was some sort of dinner for her to wolf down in the evening.

It was an odd life they'd settled into in this little aged house, full of musty smells and an aura of decay. Kanami had hated the place, and Mimori had conceded that it was really quite awful – _but it'll do for now, won't it_? Once life was more settled, they could find somewhere else that wasn't so … _oppressive_ in the mornings. _Once life seems more normal. Once the longing stops being so sharp. Once we move on. I_, Mimori corrected herself. _Once _I _move on_. Once she could face upheaval again, minor as moving would be. Kanami, always so perceptive, just let Mimori go at her own pace, somehow understanding that right now, she_ needed_ to fling herself into work, needed to fall asleep over books, needed to distract herself with getting the roof patched and acquiring better insulation for the walls and fighting a losing battle with mildew. "_She knows I need my coffee in the morning_," Mimori thought with a smile as she took a sip of the strong black coffee, cream and sugar luxuries given up long ago.

"_Well, it could be worse_," Mimori reasoned with herself. She fingered the heavy pendant that still lay close to her heart, its familiar weight soothing. She'd tried taking it off a few months back, tucking it safely into a little box where she kept other treasured possessions. "I shouldn't need it anymore, I shouldn't _have_ to wear it," she'd told Kanami, who had watched silently as Mimori wound the thick cord around this little piece of her life that seemed like so very, very long ago and gingerly placed it on top of other items from that same life. But she found its absence distressing, and while it shamed her to admit that she _did_ need this familiarity, this reminder of one who would quite possibly never return to her, she had retrieved it and hung it back in its rightful place.

A knock on the door brought Mimori out of her hazy thoughts. An emergency? No one ever came to the house directly unless something was wrong, not this early, at least. She threw the door open, about to tell whoever it was that she'd get her little bag and be out in a few seconds, but words failed her when she saw who it was.

"Ta – Tachibana?" she asked a little wondrously, though who else could that familiar face with the shock of purple bangs be? "What are you – when did you … why are you here?" She felt the color rising in her cheeks, embarrassed that she'd blurted something so rude. "I'm sorry, I just thought it was an emergency or something, I wasn't expecting …."

He smiled back at her, apparently not taking offense. "Kanami told me you'd be up by now and not due to work until 9 or so, so I thought I'd stop in before your day got too busy. I hope that's OK?"

Mimori shook her head vigorously. "No – I mean, yes, of course! It's fine. You just startled me, that's all. I … I was expecting you to be someone else."

* * *

They sat on a the little hillock behind the house, sipping steaming coffee and watching life beginning to wind up: women going for water, the children tagging off for their schooling, a small herd of scraggly-looking sheep heading for scant pasture.

"Well, Cammy wanted to visit some friends – we got in late last night, I didn't want to bother you - and I wanted to stop in to check in on you and Kanami, though it sounds like you've been doing really well," Asuka Tachibana said to Mimori, though he thought inwardly that she looked paler than the last time he had seen her, dark circles under her eyes. Thinner. She seemed to be fading. "The people we stayed with last night were delighted to regale us with stories about_ Kiryu-sama _delivering babies and calves in the same night."

Mimori laughed. "That was an awful night; one that I hope will never be repeated. I was begging them to call a farmer or _someone_ who knew _something_ about cows, but they insisted there wasn't any time and the cow was in trouble. By the time they started talking about possibly having to cut the calf up to get it out, I was about to be sick – you know, I liked to think that years of biology classes and dissection made me immune to that sort of thing, but I was so very, very wrong. Everything turned out fine in the end – a healthy calf, a healthy baby a little later, and life goes on." She was smiling, looking out into the distance, shaking her head a little. "I never thought about what _after_ would be like. I never imagined I'd be some sort of jack-of-all-trades doctor-veterinarian combination."

"It is funny how things work out, isn't it? I think we're going to move, the city just feels cramped these days. It's been nice being here, even for one night - things seem to have a rhythm. I don't know, Mimori. Sometimes I just can't believe that only a few years ago, we were all …." He trailed off as he saw her features contort for the briefest of moments.

"It does seem like so long ago, doesn't it?" she said softly. "I feel so old sometimes, Asuka. I just turned 21, but I find myself waking up in the morning and asking where all those years went. Where the past_ months_ have gone. I know it will get better, and things really aren't so bad right now, but sometimes I wish I could just turn the clock back a bit …. So you and Cammy aren't happy in the city? Where are you going to move to?" Mimori deflected the conversation away from the areas that were obviously still raw, and he had no wish to push her on the issue.

Tachibana shrugged. "I'm happy wherever she is, but I do miss everyone, and Cammy likes the idea of being out here, truthfully. I'm sort of tempted to see if we can get a patched-up place of our own. Maybe we can convince Cougar to head this way, might be like old times again or something." He smiled at Mimori. He knew what she must be thinking: nothing could bring back the old times, for all the wonderful and terrible things that had been rolled up together. He wondered if she'd ever give up on Ryuho. Kanami hadn't seemed terribly concerned about Kazuma, but then, she was oddly resilient for a kid.

"Mmm, shouldn't be hard to find something suitable, it'll be musty, though. Half these places are in deplorable shape. I'm hoping we can find another house after things settle a bit … it _would_ be nice to have you and Cammy and Cougar around. Maybe I'd do more than work and read my medical books." She looked down at her lap and then to him. She seemed so downcast; he wondered if this was just a phase because it pained him to think of Mimori, eternal optimist, turning into this mere shadow of her former personality.

They sat side by side in the grass in silence, Tachibana trying to think of just the right thing to say to her, hoping to see her smile or laugh or _something_. She'd been so charming when she first arrived at HOLD, and that hadn't changed - she was still the same gracious Mimori as always - but her usual effulgent personality was gone. Well, Kazuma and Ryuho_ had_ abandoned the world in favor of mortal combat indefinitely, to say nothing of -

"Do you think they'll ever be back?" Her voice pierced through his thoughts suddenly. Tachibana opened his mouth, frantically trying to think of what to tell her, but she continued to talk. "I wonder, sometimes. What would happen? What would things be like if they came back?" She squinted, looking up at the sun that was beginning to break through the clouds. "I can't even fathom right now, and sometimes at night, I query myself. '_What would you do? What would you tell both of them?_'And even then, even _I_ can't tell myself what I would say." He had no response for her, but he wasn't entirely sure she was expecting one.

She turned, looking back towards the house, and he twisted in kind, trying to see what she was gazing at. She looked at him and smiled. "It's getting late, I probably have children to patch up, or pigs, or something." He couldn't help but laugh at that, and he stood up, holding out a hand to pull her up. He squeezed that little white hand which felt so cold, thinking that maybe Cammy was right, they should get out of the city. Someone needed to keep an eye on Mimori. The idea itself was laughable, but he had never seen her so dejected. _It just isn't normal_. Well, everyday existence as of late had defied being labeled as _normal_, but he couldn't help but worry about her. He'd have to talk to Cougar, maybe _he_ would have some ideas. _God knows if it concerns the subject of Mimori, it's impossible to shut him up …._

She brightened a bit as they walked back, suggesting he and Cammy drop by that evening, the sakura were apparently lovely. Pausing to look back at him before she opened the door to her little house, Mimori smiled that little smile, and it occurred to him again how kind her eyes were. It wasn't the color that made them beautiful, as they were common enough in that department. It was how clear they were, how expressive.

She gave a polite bow to him, and her hand trailed across the phoenix carved on the door as she pushed it open. Tracing the astonishingly well-done curves of the bird with a finger, she smiled again.

"It'll be OK, Asuka. I know it. It always is."

* * *

_Never such innocence,  
Never before or since,  
As changed itself to past  
Without a word ...  
... Never such innocence again.  
_

Philip Larkin, "MCMXIV"


	2. The Year of the Boar

_**The Year of the Boar**_

Mi/sì. The sixth Earthly Branch. Fourth Lunar Month. Ruling hours: 9 to 11 am.

_In Chinese ideography,  
A roof with a pig under it  
Means home.  
_

John Cotton, "Pigs (Four ways of looking at)"

* * *

Cougar decided that mid-morning was the best time for lying under trees and reading, though it pained him a bit to admit that he - Straight Cougar, he of_ Radical Good Speed_ for crying out loud – now had a _desire_ to stretch out under trees and actually take the time to finish a book. To do nothing with his days but enjoy the slow pace. Not that Mimori would let him do much more, but there were worse fates in life than being fussed over by a beautiful, intelligent woman. He'd decided that much when he'd returned at Tachibana's urging – Mimori had flung herself into his arms and tearfully declared that she wasn't sure she'd ever been so glad to see anyone, and then launched into a five minute speech on how he had to take better care of himself. "It's a wonder your body hasn't totally given out - don't do anything rash, promise me?" she'd clucked to him like a mother hen.

So he didn't, and much to his great surprise, it suited him just fine. Of course, he occasionally felt like he was 80 … and he did sit and ponder his mortality a fair bit … but he always had to laugh when Mimori teasingly referred to him as"old man." It wasn't so bad, this slow-paced life. It could be worse. She smiled more frequently now, and he didn't catch her staring blank-faced out at the horizon as often as he had the first months he had been back. These days, though, her sadness was unpredictable, coming up suddenly. One of the children in the village had brought 'Kiryu-sama' a bouquet of spring wildflowers a month before, and Mimori had frozen, staring at the blue and red flowers bunched together, mouth open slightly. Kanami had presciently extracted the sad little bunch from Mimori's hands, saying something about finding a vase. _That's the one to watch, the twelve year old who has more grace and innate sense of how to make things better than most adults could ever dream of, alter or no_.

Mimori had gone out and watched the stars after that, even though the cold wind was biting that night. She rarely talked of Ryuho, or anything having to do with life 'before,' as she called it. She'd talked that night, though, when he'd found her by the same tree he was currently sprawled under. Her voice had been drowsy, and she'd leaned her head on his shoulder and talked of everything and nothing, speaking in imprecise language that was uncharacteristic of her scientific mind. 'He' and 'she' sufficed for proper nouns, standing in place of those unspoken names that hesitated coming off the tongue. _Kazuma. Scheris. Ryuho_. But he hadn't needed to ask whom they referred to; it was blindingly obvious. "Don't say anything to Tachibana," she'd mumbled. "He worries about me too much as it is. It's just getting used to familiar things being gone. That's all."

He wished Kazuma and Ryuho would reappear so he could give both of them, Ryuho especially, a violent tongue-lashing. In his estimation, it was entirely unlikely that two hot headed idiots would managed to beat _sense_ into each other even if they fought for the next century, though one could always hope for miracles. He wasn't sure Ryuho would even care that there was a woman waiting for him, and it infuriated Cougar to see Mimori holding on to the past like she was. Oh, he could understand holding on to dreams and ideas, he could see longing for someone who actually _deserved it_, but _Ryuho Ryu_? An absolute waste of a beautiful girl. "Such a brilliantly romantic idea, if only she were pining away for someone who was worthy of her!" he had exclaimed to Tachibana.

Cammy had muttered something about a woman's heart, Cougar had geared up to defend his position, but Tachibana had shrugged – "Who knows, Cougar. About either of them. I stopped trying to understand it long ago." – and Cougar had to admit it was awfully tempting to fall into that line of thinking. Still … he'd declared to the sky one night that while Miss Mimori may not be destined to be by his side, that wouldn't stop him from trying. In subtle ways, of course. She wasn't in any shape for cheeky declarations of love or someone trying to lure her into bed, no matter how teasingly. Maybe she'd come around, maybe she wouldn't. Even if he could just take her mind off that green-haired jackass for a few months, it would be worth the effort. And no matter what, no matter how Fate dealt their hand, _he_ wouldn't leave her …

"Daydreaming again?"

He looked towards the voice that came suddenly, and Mimori was smiling like a mother would smile at an errant child. "Daydreaming? Never! Besides, shouldn't you be busy working instead of attempting to curtail my_ thinking alone time_? Surely there are ill chickens to nurse and broken bones to be set," he teased.

She smiled more broadly, and shook her head. "Not today. Nothing on the schedule. Short of someone falling off a roof and breaking their back, I think we're in the clear - good thing, too, I could use a day off." She sat down next to him, and picked up the book that lay in his lap.

"Sun Tzu? A bit heavy for a mid-morning read, wouldn't you say?" She looked up at him through those thick lashes, smiling.

He beamed back. "Nonsense, Kiryu_-sama_." Cougar found it hilarious that the villagers had bestowed such a young woman with the honorific, and he liked teasing her about her new status.

"Nothing like a little history with the morning coffee. You're not really one to talk, I saw you reading that … that book again last night. The one with all the gruesome plates. Over _dinner _no less, Miss Minori-" he waited for her correction, which came as swiftly as it always had, he lived for those words sometimes. _Mi_m_ori_. Such a beautiful name, even prettier when she said it.

"Oh, it's not_ gruesome_ and you know it," she laughed. "Nothing worse than anything I saw at HOLD or in anatomy classes. Besides," she added, her voice growing a little harder. "What are bones and tendons and organs compared to bodies decaying thanks to alters? _That's_ gruesome."

He was waiting for her to wind up her favorite speech, the one about "_don't you dare think of using it, if I find out I'll throttle you myself, there's_no need_ anymore, _none_. Cougar? Are you listening?_" He always wondered if she'd have children, because she was becoming awfully good at _sounding_ like the older women in the village who worried over and chided their offspring. This usually led to what he knew must be a halfway dreamy look on his face, thinking about Mimori's potential children. Surely anything touched by her – hell, sharing half her genes – would be beautiful … and then he'd find with a start that Mimori was staring at him, asking him what was wrong, was everything ok, did he feel all right, did he need to lie down?

So it was with some surprise that he realized she hadn't launched into her usual lecture, and instead had leaned her head on his shoulder. "I'm glad you came back, Straight Cougar."

"I'm glad to be back, Kiryu-sama." She laughed again.

For all his attempted smoothness, he never could find the right time or the right words to tell her that he'd rather die than never see her again. That as long as she was there, it didn't matter that his body was slowly giving out, that he tired more easily than he ever had before, that he wondered sometimes if he'd just not wake up from an afternoon nap – no, the fact that he _took_ naps at all. That he'd happily stay by her side, even if she pined after Ryuho for the next fifty years, even if the asshole never came back and Cougar never got to deliver the beating the green-haired alter richly deserved for making Mimori so miserable for all these years. That nothing –_nothing_ – in life mattered more than seeing her happy.

* * *

She left Cougar reading Sun Tzu in the shade, saying she had some books to page through before lunch, now that there was time for that sort of thing. Mimori was glad to have him near again, another steady constant in her life, though she'd been shocked by the change in him when he'd come with Tachibana and Cammy. But there was still that glint in his eye, the old smirk and roaring laugh made frequent appearances, and he seemed to be enjoying a slower pace. She hid her smile every time she came across the boys of the village clustered around him, begging him to regale them with old stories of his exploits.

"_You_ saved Kiryu-sama once? Did you really? _How_?" They never got tired of hearing that one, and Cougar never tired of telling it, though it had grown and expanded in the numerous retellings, naturally.

_Who would have thought we'd settle into this at the ripe old ages of twenty-two and twenty-five?_ But he was breathing, he was still _here_ (and he had no intention of leaving her any time soon, as he was quite fond of telling her), and Mimori couldn't ask for much more than that. She loved him, was glad he adored her back, and sometimes, especially after a glass of wine (or three), wondered why she couldn't be _in_ love with this one …

But she wasn't, and so she contented herself with the knowledge that Cougar's heart beat and that he would always been there to lean on as long as he was able. Contented herself with wordless nights passed watching the stars, her arm looped with his. Contented herself with trying to keep up with his intellectual exploits. She'd started jotting down his reading selections so she could _try_ and keep up with him; evenings these days found her plowing furiously through whatever his latest literary passion was, simply so she had some idea of what he mused about over a glass of wine. Even now, when she caught him_napping_ on occasion, she found that Cougar's mind moved just as fast as his body ever had.

'_At least some things never change,_' she thought with a wry smile. Kanami still worked at a farm most mornings; Tachibana and Cammy were as love-struck as ever, and Mimori was grateful for being able to step out her front door and find herself a few steps from them. Cammy had taken to raising ornamental _chickens_ of all things, and while Mimori often found herself wishing at sunrise that there wasn't a coop of thirty _quite_ so near her house, it seemed a small price to pay for having friends close by.

She stretched out on her bed that was bathed in late morning sun, glad to be in this happy little house. And it _was_ happy these days, most of the time, at least on the surface. A quiet kind of happiness, tinged with ghosts and memories that lurked in the corners, and while she knew she would never be able to expunge those ghosts – wasn't sure she wanted to, in truth – it was nice to be building something in the_after_. They'd surprised her on her birthday two months ago, Kanami, Cougar, Cammy and Tachibana – a veritable feast, all sorts of fancy dishes she hadn't had in years. "You work so hard, Mimori, and you deserve a good birthday at the very least!" Cammy had bubbled at her. Mimori had grown so accustomed to discounting age as any sort of marker, gotten so used to feeling like she was years or decades older than she was, that birthdays had stopped holding much meaning long ago. But over dinner and a bottle of champagne that Asuka had gotten somewhere, Mimori felt for the first time that they _were_ young, all of them.

She'd noticed the oven smoking while they were finishing dinner proper, and she'd laughed until tears were streaming down her face as Cougar and Tachibana swore over the blackened brick that had started its short and ill-fated life as cake batter. Chirping had brought her out of her fit of giggles, and Cammy produced a little grey-fuzzed chick – "Well, it's not exactly _easy_ to get good gifts here, you know" – and told Mimori to name him, because he was hers now.

"A chicken?" Cougar and Mimori had asked simultaneously, voices incredulous. "He's a_ chabo_, not an ordinary _chicken_," Cammy had huffed, and it had struck Mimori again how funny it was that Cammy – Tachibana's _Cammy_! – now happily presided over a flock of ornamental poultry, clucking and cajoling and worrying like a mother would fuss over her children. "They really do make sweet pets, and wait until you see his plumage once he grows up a bit. This type is known for their tail feathers," Cammy explained.

"We'll call him Suzaku, then, even though he's not red," Mimori had declared, and she always had to smile when she saw him, thinking about the night that Cougar and Tachibana tried baking a cake and the Yuta-Kiryu-Straight household acquired a pet _chicken_. That she, heiress to a huge fortune in what seemed like a former life, _had_ a pet chicken that she went out to feed in the morning and who seemed to delight in settling on the grass next to her when she managed to catch a brief respite from work in the afternoon.

She rolled over on her side, watching the shadows shift in the sun and breeze. The dull ache wasn't strong anymore, or maybe she'd just gotten used to it; the sadness and grief now came in searing flashes at strange times. _It's like an old break_, she mused, _one that's been set for years. But before the rains come, it aches and throbs no matter what you do, and you just have to wait for it to pass_.

* * *

Kanami looked up at the sky, realizing that it was inching towards afternoon and that lunch was calling. It looked like they'd have one of those wild late spring rains today; the dark clouds were already rolling in from the sea and the air was heavy with moisture. She liked the days when Mimori had nothing to do and could lean up against the counter talking while she cooked, or they sat in the afternoon sun with Cougar and Suzaku. Kanami liked it when Mimori slowed down, even for just a few hours, and didn't have that terribly sad feeling about her that no one else seemed to notice. But it was still so palpable, so raw, that Kanami didn't even have to _think_ about feeling it; it hung around the house, followed Mimori through the days and into her dreams. Kanami knew all this.

She wished she could articulate for Mimori everything that she felt, beyond "It will be fine, Mimori-san." Tachibana had commented once that she was never worried about Kaza-kun, and she had just smiled down at her bowl of stew. Of course she didn't. He would return, although she couldn't say when or why. She _knew_ that he would return, and perhaps because she was secure in the knowledge that one day Kazuma would come blustering back into her life as a physical being, she didn't think about it. Ryuho would follow behind at some point, she was sure of that as well. And so she didn't worry about the man with ruby eyes, either.

Cougar was dozing behind the house under Mimori's favorite tree, Suzaku settled next to him, when Kanami finally made it up the winding dirt path from the farm. Kanami was glad Cougar had come back, because Mimori had been happier since he, Tachibana and Cammy had moved out here to the country. It seemed to help Mimori to have someone besides her patients to fuss over, to worry about in a concrete sense.

She was standing in the kitchen when Kanami came in the back door, poking suspiciously at a pot full of boiling noodles. "Is something the matter, Mimori-san?"

Mimori jumped a little, startled. "Oh! You're home early; I was trying to get a head start on lunch. But," she continued, her voice the slightest bit cross, "I don't think I'll ever make any sort of cook. I've scalded myself twice already."

Kanami covered her mouth with a hand to hide her smile. Mimori laughed. "I know; I'm hopeless." She looked towards the window. "I just worry about Cougar, whether or not he's taking care of himself. Even if my cooking's terrible, it's healthy, right? It's amazing he's doing as well as he is, but I just … worry." Mimori looked down, biting her lower lip. "I worry too much, don't I? No, I _do_ worry too much."

"He lives for _you_, bad cooking or no, and Cougar-san won't be going anywhere soon. Here," Kanami said, taking the chopsticks from Mimori's hands, "Let me show you. You'll learn to cook sooner or later, Mimori-san. You manage everything you set your mind to.

* * *

_What, youngster? Tell about my wounds?  
There's nothing much to say ...  
I needed life so much, I guess  
I fought the angel back.  
It's funny how you hate to die,  
When lying on your back._

Frank S. Brown, "The Veteran"

A/N: Suzaku (or Sujaku) is the Japanese name for one of the four guardian animals of Chinese mythology, Zhūquè (the Red Bird Guardian of the South). The meanings attached to Zhuque have gotten mashed together with those associated with the Phoenix, and it has one hell of a tail! _Chabo_ is another name for the Japanese Bantam, little chickens that were kept by the Japanese aristocracy for hundreds of years as pets.


	3. The Year of the Rat

Standard disclaimer, don't own, etc. etc. etc.

_**The Year of the Rat**_

Uma/wǔ. The seventh Earthly Branch. Fifth Lunar Month. Ruling hours: 11 am to 1 pm.

_Fate is not an eagle, it creeps like a rat._

Elizabeth Bowen, _The House in Paris_

* * *

It felt good to be back on green earth that was heavy with summer rains. Muddy … the wild grass that came nearly to his shoulders blew idly in the winds that came before the daily afternoon squalls. He'd spent too many years in the midst of upheaval, on dry, cracked earth that made an uncomfortable bed. The low hills marching off into the distance here, covered in green and copses of trees – he'd dreamed of it sometimes, some place he'd never been but seemed so familiar. It was nicer than he had ever thought it would be.

His good eye took it all in from above: the low buildings clumped together in the valley, the farms scattered on the edges where the low hillocks spread out into fields. People going home for lunch. Dogs trotting along the well-worn paths winding here and there, arguing amongst themselves; chickens plucking up the bugs that came crawling out of the warm, wet earth. Trees and little gardens. _Life_.

He'd argued with himself non-stop after the night he realized that he no longer had a grand purpose – _what to do? Where to go?_ – as though it had ever been a question of what would come _after_. Still …. He'd been skulking around the edges of the village like a cur dog for the past three days, trying to decide whether or not this was the right thing to do. He held no romantic delusions about blundering in after being gone over five years; he knew that things would be different. _How_ different was the question. And so he was here, high above it all, leaning against a tree and, for once in his short life, deciding on a course of action.

"Well, if the mongrel doesn't finally show his face."

Kazuma turned towards the voice, and was greeted with Straight Cougar grinning down at him. He looked back to his view of the valley.

"You're in some shape. What in the fuck are you doing up here?"

"_You're_ one to talk, looking like something the cat dragged in _after_ mauling it for a few hours. As to what I'm doing up here, I noticed you lurking around when you got here. I was just wondering when you were going to grace us with your presence."

Kazuma shrugged. "Just didn't want to go barging back in." Cougar roared at that, pushing his glasses onto his head and fixing Kazuma with a bemused look after his laughter subsided. "Is it possible? It is possible that you managed to acquire some _sense_? The end of the world really is near."

He furrowed his brow. "Did you tell anyone else?"

"Tell them what, that Kazuma the Shell Bullet, _battle-hardened warrior and defender of the meek-_" Kazuma had to admit that he was the tiniest bit glad that despite Cougar's gaunt appearance, he had the same flair for dramatics as he'd always had, "Has been hanging around like an outcast? Far be it from me to ruin the dramatic re-entry. No," Cougar's voice became more serious, "I didn't say anything. Kanami knows, of course, but she hasn't mentioned it."

_Of course she knew_. It hadn't really occurred to him, and he was surprised it hadn't – she'd always been astonishingly perceptive, and why wouldn't that grow with age? He'd thought of her often in the past five years, trying to picture her, wondering what she was doing – still working at a farm? Still cooking better than people three times her age? Ryuho had said to him one night as they sat out under the stars, panting and exhausted from fighting, that trying to do that was a dangerous thing. "_They come back, or you come back, and the creature in front of you is wholly different than what your mind has dreamed up._"

Kazuma had brushed it off, if for the mere fact that thinking of Kanami's happy life was the only thing that made _him_ happy. He had to grudgingly admit that Ryuho probably knew what he was talking about in this instance, but hell if _he _was going to lay out under the stars at night and think of nothing. Or fighting, or people who were dead and gone, or every mistake he'd made, every decision that had led to this futile existence. Better to think of peaceful fields somewhere and her beef noodle soup.

He followed Cougar as the older man gingerly made his way down the slope towards the village. "So. How is everyone?" As soon as the words left his lips, he could've kicked himself – sounding like he'd been gone months instead of years.

"Oh, you know. Older, wiser – _most_ofthetime – et cetera, et cetera. Miss Mimori is now 'Kiryu-sama' – she hates the title, so I suggest making ample use of it whenever possible – Lady Doctor-Veterinarian. Ask her about the time she was called out at 3 am in the rain to help a ewe, that's one of _my_ personal favorites. Be prepared for daily lectures on how she'll kill you if she finds out you're using your alter; body degeneration vis- -vis alter use has been her pet project for a few years now, and we're the perfect guinea pigs. She does a damn fine job of running around after all of us and keeping us patched up – hell, she's the only reason _I'm_ still here - so it could be worse."

Cougar stopped walking. "I don't know what, if anything, Ryuho said to you-" his voice was unusually slow and careful for Cougar, Kazuma thought "- but don't bring it up out of the blue with her."

Kazuma quirked an eyebrow. "She's still not over that asshole yet?"

A thoughtful look settled on Cougar's face. "I'm not entirely sure how to explain it. It's complicated. Just don't … upset her." He grinned suddenly. "Or I may have to give you a thrashing for old time's sake _and_ for upsetting Miss Mimori."

They walked back, Cougar giving him a speedy rundown on the past two years.

"Kanami, of course, is doing fine – cooking's as good as ever. She's trying to teach Mimori, but I think _that_ might be a lost cause, unless Kanami has a few lifetimes to spare. Working at a farm in the mornings, making sure Mimori doesn't work herself to death the rest of the time. Her alter has gotten quite a bit stronger, which is, I'm sure, entirely unsurprising, but she doesn't talk much about it, naturally."

"No, can't say I'm a bit surprised at that. But she's OK?"

Cougar gave him one of his looks, the one that clearly said _do you really need to ask that question? _"Of course she is. Out of all of us, she's been the one who's doing the best. No lover's quarrels, no body falling apart, and no absent man to be pining after, since she's been assuring us for years that you'd breeze in at some point and everything would be OK."

Kazuma tried to put on one of his cocky grins and pull up that old voice again. "Shit, of course I'd be back to check on her." Cougar's withering look proved that he hadn't _quite_ gotten it back yet.

The village was bustling, and Kazuma looked on with some interest as Cougar pointed out the local landmarks before they entered – "That's our house, good thing the name 'Kiryu-sama' carries enough weight to garner a fairly large abode, I don't think she was expecting permanent house guests two years ago when she got the place … Tachibana and Cammy live there, along with their sixty some-odd chickens … well, the chickens live out back, and '_They're_ chabos_, not ordinary chickens_.' The farms are down that way, towards the plains."

There was Mimori, balancing a chubby infant on her hip, talking seriously to what Kazuma presumed was the mother and occasionally making cooing noises at the baby. He was surprised by the change in her - all traces of adolescence were gone. She was thinner than he remembered, and her face had become more angular, losing the last of the baby fat that had clung to her cheeks at the age of eighteen.

"Kanami's probably home by now, and unless you want to be mobbed by an adoring pack of ten year olds who will want to hear in graphic detail how you kept the Mainland at bay _and_ beat the snot out of that 'prissy brat,' as they like to call our green-haired friend, I would suggest that we go and see what's for lunch."

Kazuma grinned. He couldn't even recall how many times he'd woken up with his stomach rumbling, the taste of all that good dream food on his lips. He didn't care _what_ it was, nothing – _nothing_ – in the world of food compared to Kanami's cooking. Hell, even plain rice would be an improvement over –

"I made beef noodle soup, Kazu-kun, and there's plenty of it."

And there she was, standing over the stove - and she didn't have to stand on her tiptoes anymore to see over the edge of the pot that was sending off absolutely heavenly smells of beef broth.

* * *

Mimori couldn't help but smile – her last appointment of the morning was _finally_ over and done with. She could understand motherly concern and worrying, but one of the younger wives in the village was starting to get a little out of control with the growing list of horrible diseases her little boy was possibly suffering from. Cougar had started keeping a list of them for fun, and it seemed that every week, there were at least two new maladies. "What's next – bubonic plague?" he had said to her laughingly after last week's complaint ("Malaria?" Mimori had asked the woman with more than a little wonder. "It hasn't been a problem here for decades. The last reported case was a good thirty years before _I_ was born.").

Still, it was shaping up to be a good day. The summer hadn't become oppressive yet, just nice and warm, and all was well in the little village that grew a bit every year. She supposed in a few years it would be a proper town. She pulled out her little notebook, noting a little sadly that the leather cover that she'd had for years and years was starting to show its age, and scanned her list of afternoon to-dos as she pushed open the door to the house with her shoulder. Lunch was calling.

"So? What was it today? Japanese encephalitis? Tuberculosis? Whooping cough?" Cougar asked.

Mimori laughed, not looking up from her book as she leaned against the front door to shut it again. "No, just typhoid; I think that's a repeat. One of these days, I'm going to figure out how in the world the poor girl comes up with all this stuff. He's one of the healthiest kids _I've_ ever seen."

"Well, if it isn't Kiryu_-sama_."

Mimori looked up with a start to that familiar voice – still familiar, even after a long absence. _What has it been?_ her mind asked. _Five years? Six?_ And there he was, huge bowl of Kanami's beef noodle soup in front of him, leaning back in his chair and grinning that same self-assured, cocky smile he'd always had. Her eyes darted around the room quickly, and she was glad that her heart didn't even bother to leap at the possibility that Ryuho might be back anymore. It meant she no longer felt that awful strangling tightness that used to come so regularly when she thought that maybe, just maybe, he'd returned, only to find that it was just wishful thinking on her part.

"_Mimori _will do just fine, Kazuma." She smiled a little, suddenly feeling quite shy. Kanami was smiling that little smile of hers, the contented one, and Cougar was looking on with amusement. Settling herself at the table, she tried to think of the right thing to say.

Mimori had always thought Kazuma was rakishly handsome, and despite _looking_ like he'd spent the past few years not bathing often enough and letting himself get too sunburned, she could only look in a bit of wonder at this handsome _man_ who was sitting across the table from her. He'd been a cocky teenager – _well, decidedly more grown up than most people his age, but didn't_ _that describe all of us? _– and had returned a cocky adult. She let herself ponder for the briefest second what Ryuho was like these days. Heading off_ that_ train of thought, she wondered how Kazuma's arm was doing.

"So … how've you been?"

She groaned inwardly as soon as she said it, as if Kazuma had just been gone for a few days. He apparently thought nothing of it, because that grin was on his face and his good eye glinted a bit.

"Oh, you know. Good days, bad days, a little of both. Hasn't been too terrible overall, I guess. Glad to be back to Kanami's cooking, though."

* * *

"Aw, Mimori, c'mon, I just got back and – OW! Fucking hell, that _hurt_." He glared at the woman who was prodding his right arm and writing furiously in a notebook all the while.

"Oh for heaven's sake, Kazuma, it couldn't have hurt _that_ badly - I have _toddlers_ that are better patients than you. I'm surprised you have any feeling left in this arm at all."

"What in the fuck would you know? It's _my_ arm, and I _said_ it-"

"Kazu-kun, don't swear at Mimori-san. It's not polite."

Kazuma grimaced at Kanami's statement. After his first good meal, the first time seeing everyone in years … the last thing he wanted was Mimori examining exactly how badly his right arm was feeling and looking, like he was a damned lab rat or something. This certainly wasn't _his_ idea of "catching up."

Mimori pursed her lips. "This _is_ odd, Kazuma. You're what, twenty-two? I'm not quite sure what to say, you _should_ be in worse shape, considering how much you've probably used your alter since …" She paused, and Kazuma supposed that far-off look – she was staring right through him, it seemed – was what Cougar had meant about the sadness coming up suddenly. "Ah, in the past few years. You're lucky your arm hasn't fallen _off_."

"Which means, my dear fellow, that Miss Mimori should only have to chase after and lecture you half – or a _quarter_, even – as much as she chases, lectures, and threatens me." Cougar's quip seemed to snap her right out of her temporary melancholy.

Mimori laughed, and released Kazuma's arm from her surprisingly strong and sure grip. She leaned back in her chair and put her pen down; Kazuma studied her closely for the first time as she sat there and talked to Cougar and Kanami. He watched her face - still as pretty as he remembered, but more expressive. She'd always been too uptight for Kazuma's liking, but she did seem more relaxed and at ease these days. And wiser, as if the girl genius had really needed to grow in the brains department. Ryuho's voice came back to him, some snippet of a discussion held long ago under a wide sky, on a desolate part of the Lost Ground. _"I'll lose her, too, if I go back. Better to keep her in my dreams. She's safe there."_

'_That damned selfish son of a bitch_,' Kazuma thought, the anger rising in him at the memory. Leaving Mimori in his _dreams_ so he could whip himself into the next life for things he'd had no control over. He'd be back, though. Kazuma had heard it in his voice, though he was pretty sure Ryuho wasn't even aware of it. He wasn't sure how _he_ recognized it, but he'd heard that longing, however well hidden it was.

When Mimori's eyes caught sight of Kazuma studying her, she smiled again, already looking less nervous with him. He couldn't help himself - despite what Cougar had said, she might as well know something. He leaned in close to her when Kanami and Cougar were deep in discussion about … herbs, or something.

"He'll be back."

Mimori gave him a startled look, mouth opening and then closing again, taken totally off guard.

"Anyways," Kazuma breezed on, hoping Cougar hadn't noticed and not giving Mimori a chance to respond. "So what's this favorite story of yours, the one about ewes in the middle of the night?" Kazuma grinned as he settled back into his chair. Cougar started to laugh, and Mimori scowled, though she did launch into her story.

"Well, the _old man_ over there had told one of the new residents that 'Kiryu-sama' was not only a doctor, but an experienced veterinarian as well, just in time for lambing season …"

* * *

_Shall they return to beatings of great bells . . .?  
A few, a few, too few for drums and yells,  
May creep back, silent, to village wells  
Up half-known roads._

Wilfred Owen, "The Send-Off"


	4. The Year of the Ox

_**The Year of the Ox**_

Hitsuji/wèi.The eighth Earthly Branch. The Sixth Lunar Month. Ruling hours: 1 to 3 pm.

_Our Ox lets the good earth lead it,     
Just as our brush allows our hand to move it.     
Take any direction, roam the world to its farthest edge.     
All comes back to where it started... _

Hsu Yun, "Ten Ox-herding Poems"

* * *

She'd gone out in the early morning to feed the chickens, as was her morning ritual; the sun was just starting to rise and burn off the fog that rolled in every night in the summer. She and Cammy had decided that winter that Suzaku needed his own flock to watch over, and Mimori had to admit that she did, in fact, _like_ having pet chickens. She'd been standing there in slippers and a bathrobe, saying her good mornings to her little flock of four - "The fog's awfully heavy this morning, wouldn't you say, Suzaku?" - when she'd noticed something move under her tree.

"_This is not possible,_" she'd told herself a split second before she screamed and flung the bowl containing the chickens' breakfast at what she was _sure_ must be an apparition, a figment of her imagination, a trick of the mind. She thought that she'd finally gone mad, the break with reality had come, the years of keeping stress pent up inside of her had finally caused her mind to totally lose touch with reality – because there _he_ was, under _her_ tree, looking at her with those unmistakable red eyes.

* * *

He hadn't meant to startle her, and in truth, she had frightened him as much as he'd apparently scared her. If he'd had any idea that the old tree he was leaned up against in the early morning hours was behind her house, he would have moved – or moved on to the next village wordlessly. He'd heard movement before he saw it, and she'd suddenly appeared, looking like a ghost in the thick fog – unusually heavy, even for the humid summer. His voice had caught in his throat when he'd realized it was _her _moving towards him through the fog, not a ghost.

He'd shifted his weight, hoarsely calling out a greeting, and she'd screamed and flung the bowl in her hands at him. He'd realized it a second too late, and it caught a glancing blow off his face. There was a sudden riot of noise – chickens crying in alarm, doors being hurriedly opened, Mimori's panicked breathing as he stumbled towards her, hand to his face, lack of sleep making even such a minor injury hurt like hell.

"Miss Mimori – what's happened? What's wrong?"

Her voice again, sounding like it was on the verge of tears. "Cougar – Cougar, I've finally gone _mad_. I – I came out to feed the chickens and then … then … Cougar, _I'm seeing things_."

Ryuho looked up, and he was close enough to see Mimori plastered against the side of the house, hand to her face, eyes wide with horror. Straight Cougar –_ how in the world has his body not given out yet?_ – was peering out at him, arm protectively draped around Mimori's shoulders, and his old rival, bleary-eyed and half-dressed, was swearing and yowling.

"God _damn_ it, I _knew_ I should've killed that bastard when I had the chance. Fucking asshole, lurking under trees at 5 am? What in the fuck is _wrong_ with you?" _Typical_.

Ryuho had pulled his hand away from his face and noted the warm, sticky blood that was pouring out of his nose. Cougar had started to laugh.

"Darling Miss Mimori, while part of me heartily desires to agree with you that you _didn't_ just fling a bowl at Ryuho's head, I don't think figments bleed from getting hit with ceramics. Truly."

She'd started to cry at that point, and had edged her way back inside the house, shutting the door firmly behind her. Ryuho was left staring at Cougar and Kazuma while the nosebleed gradually tapered off. It seemed that no one was quite sure what to say. _He_ certainly had no appropriate comment for the whole bloody situation.

It hadn't been an auspicious re-beginning.

He'd drifted after he and Kazuma had put an end to their fight; he'd watched Kazuma go back to Kanami, to everyone, and part of him had wanted to go along right then. "_Don't you give a flying fuck? Don't you care just the littlest bit?_" Kazuma had snarled at him once in the middle of a fight, long after they'd exhausted their alters and had reverted to a more primitive form of combat.

"_Of course I do. But too much has happened._"

"_Bullshit. You're fucking terrified and you know it_. _If you think _she_ died so you could spend your life in misery, you're even more of a goddamned idiot than I ever took you for._"

Those words had stung more than the punch that had come with them. Still, he had penance to do – for living, for breathing, for being under the wide expanse of blue summer sky. And so, while he envied Kazuma's return to normalcy, or whatever passed for it these days, he continued to make his bed on hard earth, continued to wander aimlessly, helping where he could, because it was the only thing that felt _right_.

But he'd wound up back in the fold of things, back with people he had been sure he would never see again, back near _her_, despite himself. _So many years_. Six, seven? Too long, or not long enough, Ryuho couldn't decide. But he was, frankly, too tired to argue with several people who insisted that he needed to stay for a while, to rest. He wasn't _quite_ sure enough that perpetual misery had been his decreed fate since that awful day to storm off to the next town.

And so he found himself seated in her kitchen – mere hours after his presence had incited her to fling a heavy piece of pottery at him – patched up and staring dejectedly at Kazuma, Tachibana and Cougar over a bowl of Kanami's chicken stew. Cammy hovered nervously in the background while the youngest girl went about her daily routine, seemingly not finding his return the slightest bit jarring. Mimori had gone out for her appointments after looking at his injuries – she had insisted, though he had pointed out they were entirely too minor to require any sort of care.

"_Nonsense_," she had replied, her voice firm in a way that it hadn't been when they were at HOLD.

He'd kept an impassive visage but watched her with interest as she cleaned his fresh wounds and doctored them up. She was older, of course – weren't they all? - though still as beautiful as she had been at twelve, at eighteen.

"_Maybe it's just our fate to meet at six year intervals_," he had proposed to Kazuma during one fight. "_Maybe it's just _your_ fate to be a complete idiot when it comes to living,"_ Kazuma had retorted, and Ryuho had to admit that he'd seen the logic of Kazuma's point, crudely worded as it had been.

She was leaner, and her face was more sharply defined – her cheekbones seemed more prominent, her eyes seemed a little larger. Certainly, they looked_wiser_. Her demeanor had been cooler than he would've expected, and other than apologizing profusely, she had said little to him.

"I'll be back this afternoon after my appointments for the day are done."

And like that, she was gone. He wasn't sure what to think.

No one had said much that morning – no long lists of questions were asked, no answers expected. And now – sitting here at this table – it was a bit like facing down a firing squad, he mused. _Every_ answer would be the wrong answer. He cursed whatever little twist of fate had led him back here. But at the same time –

"So. How long are you planning on staying?" Tachibana's voice was icy, and Ryuho returned Tachibana's dagger gaze coolly. He shrugged.

"Depends, I guess."

"It depends?" Tachibana's voice was incredulous. "_Depends_? Don't tell me you think you can just … just waltz back in here and then go waltzing back out again whenever you damn well please. It's been – _years_, and you know, things were finally starting to -"

"Asuka," came Cammy's voice. "Not now."

"Had I known who was residing here, I never would've stopped to rest," Ryuho tried to respond as calmly as possible. Asuka began to turn red.

"Oh, that's just _great_. So you _are_ going to pack up and leave and – I can't believe this," Tachibana sputtered. He looked absolutely furious, and Kazuma and Cougar flicked their eyes back and forth between him and the red-faced man with interest. "I always knew you were an insensitive ass, but this really takes the cake, Ryuho. I swear to-"

"What Tachibana here is trying to say is that you fuck this thing up _one more time_, we'll have your god damned-"

"Kaza-kun, stop swearing, it's not polite."

_Leave it to Kazuma to cut to the chase_, Ryuho thought grimly. Cougar was oddly silent, staring intently out the large window that looked out towards the other houses of the village. Ryuho glanced out to whatever Cougar was looking at – Mimori bent down, scratching the shoulders of a dog, smiling up at one of the residents. Had she ever looked that happy at HOLD?

He'd never told her that he'd dreamed of her in the intervening years between meeting as children, and then again as children-but-not. On so many nights after his mother had been killed, the nights when it felt like his mind would never stop racing – thinking, plotting, deciding – he'd force himself to lie still and quiet and think of her. Dream Mimori was usually enough to lull him into sleep, even if only for a few hours.

He'd never tell her of all those other nights spent under the clear night skies of the Lost Ground that she loved so much, wondering about her. He never let his mind take off in that direction unless he was too exhausted to forcibly direct it elsewhere, but sometimes it was the only part of his day that brought him any respite from his self-enforced misery.

Who ever would have thought things would turn out like this?

* * *

She almost regretted saying goodbye to her last patient of the day and was tempted to go … anywhere, somewhere that wasn't her house, somewhere he _wasn't_. Mimori couldn't help but be surprised at the feelings that were assailing her – she wasn't even sure she wanted to see him, much less talk to him, inquire after his whereabouts for the past few years. It had never played out like this in her head.

Things _had_ settled into an easy routine for everyone, even her. And days slid by into weeks, which slid by into months …. And she'd felt so secure in the knowledge that Ryuho _wouldn't_ return, that the pendant would be the only reminder of his familiar-yet-not presence for the rest of her life. _Their_ lives. And it made her heart ache to admit that she was more than a touch angry that he'd appeared out of nowhere, that she wanted to demand answers – not of where he'd been, but of where he would be going – that he'd wandered back in so nonchalantly. As if nothing had happened. As if he hadn't been away for years.

Mimori felt a headache coming on. Nearly three o'clock and she hadn't eaten yet, but she wasn't hungry. Another hold over from her college days, the awful inability to eat more than a few bites when she was under stress. '_Thank God for coffee_,' she thought as she set her mouth in what she hoped was a firm line and opened the side door to the kitchen.

Cammy and Kanami looked up, and Mimori's heart lifted a little, seeing that no one else was in the kitchen.

She let Cammy cluck nervously over her – "Are you _sure_ you're OK? Do you need anything?" – and Mimori smiled, felt herself giving smooth answers, not even having to think. "Of course I'm fine … it was just a surprise this morning, as I'm sure you can imagine. I think I'll go read for a bit. Is there a pot of coffee on?"

Cammy started wringing hands. "Mimori, I wouldn't …" Mimori looked at the younger woman, waiting for her to continue. "Well, it's just that …_he's_ sleeping in your study."

"Well …" Mimori started slowly. "No matter, I doubt the sound of pages turning will wake him up." She flashed Cammy what she hoped was a comforting smile.

She loved her study, especially in the mid-afternoon in the drowsy heat and humidity of summer. She loved watching the afternoon storms roll in from the sea, the shifting shadows cast by the sun coming through the trees. She loved all the big windows, the light, the breezes that shuffled in and caught the edges of paper. All the good nights that had been passed with piles of books and papers spread on the floor, Cougar reading her this or that poem or bit of philosophy or history or science … Kazuma drowsing in the corner, Kanami watching with her quiet smile. It was _her_ space. And she'd be damned if she was going to let … someone _else_ push her out of it.

He was sleeping on the little couch, just like Cammy had said, and she willed herself not to look at him. She settled herself at her desk and looked out the window instead – there were the chickens scratching around the yard, _they_ had at least completely recovered from the morning's excitement – and the men sitting by her tree. From what Mimori could see from this angle, Asuka looked furious, Cougar contemplative, and Kazuma simply worked up about something. Ryuho, no doubt.

She forced herself to be lulled by the sound of her pen scratching across paper and the familiar rhythm of going down her daily lists of _notes to make, things to read, points to ponder_. She could hear him breathe, deep and slow and steady, she didn't need to look. She made herself work until she couldn't stand it anymore.

She finally allowed herself to turn and look at him as he slept, and he was so still, so quiet that she wondered now and then if he was still breathing. He looked a bit pathetic; tattered clothes, bandaged nose, shaggy green hair, head lolled back in what was apparently long overdue sleep. She still couldn't quite believe he was here, sleeping on her couch. Older, unkempt, and exhausted – but _here_.

The sun slanting in only served to make him look even more gaunt, highlighting the hollows under his cheekbones, his eyes that looked … _sunken_, Mimori thought with a bit of a shiver. Older. Thinner. He'd always been lean, but he looked more sinewy to her. She liked to think that they'd all grown in the intervening years, become the adults that they'd played at being so many years ago. She wondered if the same held true for him. Or had he regressed? Was there anything to regress _from_?

She wasn't sure how long she'd been sitting there twisted in her chair just … watching him; a sputtering gasp and strangled cry brought her out of her contemplative reverie. She watched him carefully – _just a dream_, she told herself. And then another gasp. And … silence.

_So quiet_. _ Too quiet_. She was up and standing above him before she even realized what she was doing, and he was so perfectly motionless – she couldn't even see the rise and fall of his chest – she thought he must be dead. His skin looked astonishingly smooth, all things considered. Still pale, how had he managed that? Eerily corpse-like. She reached out a hand to touch that pale skin, wondering if it would be tinged with coldness. It had been so long since she'd stood behind him, arms wrapped around his chest, that she couldn't remember – had she been surprised at the unexpected warmth of his body, or astonished that his body was as cold as he had been?

Drowsy ruby eyes looked up at her, and she pulled her hand back, startled and embarrassed.

"S'matter?"

His voice was heavy and low, and Mimori was surprised at the casualness of his statement. "You were - gasping for air, and I just – I thought-"

His eyes were closed again, one corner of his mouth turned up ever so slightly, and she realized he must've been asleep, was _still_ sleeping. "I just thought you were – you looked like you'd … gone away," she whispered down to him.

She felt unsteady on her feet, and it hurt her to stand over him, watch his eyes flick under the almost translucent skin of his eyelids. She wondered if he cared about all the nights she'd tortured herself – the nights when Cougar was too exhausted to talk to her until she was tired enough to sleep, when she'd go out and sit under her tree and play through a hundred different scenarios in her head. What if things_ had_ turned out differently; what if _this_ had happened, what if _that_ had happened, where would all of them be now?

So many nights. Mimori stood in the warm patch of mid-afternoon sun, the air so heavy and silent, and she wanted to shake him, tell him to go, to leave, to do whatever it is that he did before he blundered back into her life, leave her to this little life she'd built for herself. And yet … she wanted nothing more than to wake him, put her arms around him, tell him that she had missed him so much – wondered and worried, his memory was always lurking right around the corner – and hear him tell her that she mattered, that she'd always mattered, that she _still_ mattered.

Mimori stood there, wondering at the fact that he was here in her study, a thousand questions begging to be asked. But she hadn't the heart to wake him, and she admitted that she wasn't sure she wanted to hear the answers to those questions. And so she let him sleep.

"Who would've thought things ever would've ended up like this?" she whispered to Ryuho, suddenly feeling like she'd drown in the weight of the heavy summer air if she didn't break the silence. "Who ever would've thought?"

* * *

… _It hurts my heart to watch you,  
Deep-shadow'd from the candle's guttering gold;  
And you wonder why I shake you by the shoulder;  
Drowsy, you mumble and sigh and turn your head . . ._  
You are too young to fall asleep for ever;  
And when you sleep you remind me of the dead.

Siegfried Sassoon, "The Dug-Out"


	5. The Year of the Tiger

_**The Year of the Tiger**_

Saru/shēn. The ninth Earthly Branch. Seventh Lunar Month. Ruling hours: 3 to 5 pm.

… _And should he leap the jungle path  
And clasp you with his bloody jaws,_

_Then say, as his divine embrace  
Destroys the mortal parts of you:  
I too am of that royal race  
Who do what we are born to do.__  
_

Alec Derwent Hope, "Tiger"

* * *

He had to admit that coming back to the world of the living was, at the very least, an educational experience. Letting himself feel things that had been a non-issue for so long – the way cold buckwheat noodles tasted on a hot afternoon, for instance, or Kanami's beef stew in the middle of an unexpected snowstorm. The pleasure of afternoon rainstorms in the summer, the way the earth felt beneath his hands while he and Kazuma planted saplings in the new orchard and snarled at each other. It was the way normal people went through life, he guessed.

There was much to be said for the little physical pleasures that he'd never taken the time to notice before, but the little emotional battles he waged internally were something he'd happily give up and never deal with again. Ryuho had always considered himself above petty and base emotions, with the exception of anger and hatred, which he didn't consider _base_, but necessary and purposeful when applied correctly. Anger and penance were two things he was good at these days – he knew how to control them and twist them in his favor. Anything else was beneath him; after all, hadn't his cool demeanor been one of his defining characteristics all those years at HOLY?

As he sat in Mimori's now-familiar kitchen – had it really been a year since they'd sat at this very table, coolly watching each other as she'd bandaged his nose? – he had to admit that he had no idea how to deal with all these little emotions that washed over him during the day. Happiness, for the most part. The first time he'd caught himself smiling stupidly over some inconsequential moment – he couldn't remember what, it might have been Mimori and Cammy cooing over their damned chickens like children, or Cougar's riotous laugh while reading Plato – he'd been horrified. What right had he to smile over such inane matters? What right had he to smile at _all_?

It still horrified him. It wasn't _fair_ that he was here and able to smile over little everyday things; and too, the idea that he might lose himself totally in this mellow day-to-day existence, give up the control that an icy façade afforded, allow himself the ups and downs of life – well, it was like being balanced on the edge of a steep cliff, knowing that one step too far would spell certain disaster. _No, more than disaster_, he told himself. _A betrayal_.

But he couldn't help himself. There were days that he so desperately wanted to launch himself into everything he'd never had before, or hadn't had for years, that it was a constant struggle to keep all those emotions in check. And so they slipped out on occasion, much to his chagrin. The first time Mimori had looked up at him and given him a real and genuine smile, he'd been so delighted that she'd looked at _him_ like that – he couldn't help but smile back.

Still. Letting himself be happy that she occasionally smiled at him like she always smiled at Cougar – _Kazuma_ even – forced him to admit that those nasty pangs of jealousy did creep up on him. He supposed he'd had his moments in the past, but now it was harder to bite them back and hide them away. She had, after all, come back for him, hadn't she? Wasn't she supposed to be waiting for _him_? And he knew that it wasn't fair to get angry at her for ... moving on, that it was _his_ fault … that he had been the one to move off without a word, had told her to go home. That he had told her in so many words there would never be anything between them. But didn't she understand that he didn't deserve any of that – didn't deserve _happiness_? And that was why he never … but didn't the princess always wait for the knight to come riding back, no matter how implausible?

Ryuho hated waffling, indecision, being stuck in an untenable position. And he hated himself for being stopped dead in his tracks earlier in the day – he'd been coming up the well-worn path from the farm Kanami worked at, idly contemplating the rest of the day – Cammy had said something about patching her chicken coop's roof. And when he came up the hill and Mimori's tree had come into view, it was as if the life was being strangled out of his heart – a feeling he was wholly unaccustomed to dealing with in such positively mundane situations.

All because Mimori had looked so happy. Cougar had his head in her lap, and they seemed so relaxed and calm, so familiar – Mimori had some little book in her hands as she sat idly running one hand through Cougar's red hair, streaked with grey, smiling down at him and laughing, some private little joke between friends. And Ryuho had been confused, and irritated, and … _jealous_. He clenched a fist just remembering it, because it was an emotion that was wholly beneath him. Ryuho Ryu, jealous over something as ridiculous as a woman. Even if it _was_ one of the women he dreamed of frequently. The whole concept was preposterous.

Yet he'd been wounded when he realized that the familiar glint of her pendant was gone, its heavy cord absent from that beautiful stretch of skin over her collarbones. And so he'd stalked back to the house wordlessly and out of sight, not wanting to disturb their little moment, though he was sorely tempted. And it appalled him that _he_ was feeling like this.

_So here we are, late afternoon, waiting for the rains to come, and I'm sitting here at this table being angry over nothing_, he chastised himself. After all, he could've had her if he'd wanted. Right? What difference did a little shard make? He'd thought it silly that she'd carried it with her all those years, so hopefully – hadn't he?

The slam of the screen door brought him out of his internal discussion, and Mimori came in, tendrils of dark hair slipping down from her seemingly hastily placed bun. She smiled. He glowered.

"Kanami leave anything for lunch?" she asked simply, standing over the stove.

"If she did, Kazuma's eaten all of it." Cool and to the point; their conversations over the past year were best described in short, clipped terms and he hated to say that. _Hated_ it. It kept him up at nights, though he couldn't clearly articulate _why_, not even to himself.

Mimori gave a little nod and moved silently through the kitchen, digging through the refrigerator.

"You're home early today," Ryuho said, grasping at conversation.

Mimori straightened up, dragon fruit in hand. "Well, not really. It's been a bit of a busy day." She shot him a sidelong glance then continued sorting through groceries for her lunch.

It pained him, this strained conversation. _Not strained, precisely_, he thought. _Cold. Mechanical_. Perhaps this is what _she _had felt like during their time at HOLD and after ….

"Oh? So busy you had time to be reading under trees, apparently."

He had no idea how that statement had escaped his lips, and as soon as it slipped out, he wished he could just stuff it back from where it came from. Mimori turned and looked at him, a confused look flitting across her face.

"No, I was done with my appointments. In case you failed to notice, I was out of the house at 5 and was booked up all morning." She turned back to the kitchen counter. "Everyone needs a break now and then, and I _like_ reading under trees with Cougar in the afternoon." She laughed a little. "I don't know, Ryuho, I've worked pretty hard the past few years to be able to afford the luxury of the occasional afternoon off. I think I deserve it."

He wished he could explain that yes, he _knew_ she worked very hard and _had_ been working very hard, and how jealous he was of this life they'd all built. All of them – even Kazuma! – had settled into a pattern of days moving along seamlessly, everyone in their place, doing their appointed tasks. Comfortable nights spent under the stars or in someone's house. Except for him: they'd been gracious in accepting him back into the fold, but Tachibana still watched him suspiciously, Cammy still wrung her hands nervously, Mimori still smiled at him absently. He was an outsider again, and for once, it bothered him intensely.

An interloper. No wonder Cougar occasionally flashed him glances that Ryuho took for pity. It infuriated him. Someone pitying _him_.

"Well, some of us haven't had that luxury," he snapped back, anger welling up – it was bewildering. And where had such a non sequitur come from? Why were his emotions betraying him _now_ of all times?

Mimori stopped eating, a shocked look on her face. It had occurred to him on several occasions that the reason their conversations were so frosty was that they had both received the same sort of training as children, schooling in the _proper way to behave_. How to deal with people you don't like; how to remain gracious and cool under any circumstances (Mimori was much better at the gracious part than he was, he knew that, but _he_ had a lock on remaining outwardly calm and frigid); how to keep the rigid mask of social acceptability on. _She'd_ slipped on a few occasions while at HOLD, and in the past, he'd disdainfully wondered how she could allow her emotions to overwhelm her like that.

She recomposed her face quickly, matching his gaze with a chilly one of her own. "Beg your pardon? I'm not entirely sure what you mean." Ryuho thought he'd never heard her sound like that before – so … _icy_. So unlike Mimori. Maybe they'd _all_ changed in the intervening years …. She turned her back to him once again.

"Some of us haven't had the luxury of going through life with nary a care."

The late summer air suddenly seemed very thick and very quiet; he could see the rise and fall of her shoulders become more rapid. He was expecting her to retort with something, and when she didn't, it angered him further – he _would_ get some response besides cool politeness out of her.

"Or perhaps you've forgotten the past already, Kiryu-san."

She turned on him suddenly, a look of absolute fury and disgust in her eyes.

"_Forgotten_? Are you really so deluded that you think we've all been ignorant of … of everything that happened before? That what you stumbled into just _happened_? That it's been smooth sailing since you and Kazuma stormed off? That we just_ forgot _about everything?"

Her voice was low and quiet – dangerous. She stalked nearer to the table, not once taking her eyes off of his. He wasn't one to shy away from confrontation, but some part of him told him to be quiet and let her spit vitriol at him through clenched teeth.

"I shouldn't _have_ to remind you, but while you and Kazuma were playing at war and distractingyourself from the business of living for the past seven years, the _rest of us_ had to go on. _I_ had to go on when I wanted to do nothing more than lie down and die." She leaned down closer to him, and he realized with a bit of horror that she looked more like a wild animal than princess groomed for social perfection. "So don't insult me with the implication that life has been merrily tripping along all this time, because _you_ wouldn't know, would you? And it's Kiryu_-sama_, you insensitive bastard."

He was trying to compose an answer – an apology? – but she was gone before he could hash out precisely how to respond to that display of angry emotion, slamming the back door behind her. Ryuho sighed, putting his head in his hands, cursing his absolute lack of tact.

* * *

Mimori clenched her teeth as she stormed down the hill, hardly paying attention to the first heavy drops of rain that were beginning to fall.

"How _dare_ he?" she whispered furiously to herself. "How dare he imply – what right does he have – how _dare_ he?"

She could feel the heat in her cheeks – she'd been embarrassed, then angry, then enraged. Now she was again embarrassed, ashamed that she'd allowed him to push her into displaying such raw emotion, furious with herself, but angrier with him. And hurt. _How can he act like the rest of us have no idea? That life's just been _fine_ since … since …_

She realized that she was by her favorite little copse of trees; it was a nice quiet place for what Cougar liked to call "thinking alone time," something she'd desperately needed since Ryuho had come staggering back into their lives. It hurt to keep herself so cool and collected around him, it was so unlike her, that sometimes she just wanted a place where she could sit in the shade and think about everything that became a bit too real when she was in his presence.

The rain was falling heavier now; it looked like they'd be having one hell of a storm. _Well, it's not like I'm made of sugar_, she thought, and some old memory came swimming up, her mother saying "_Come in from the rain, little girls are made of sugar and they melt if they get too wet_" when she'd been _very_ young. With a start she realized tears were rolling down her cheeks, and she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. She hadn't minded giving up her life, the only life she'd been accustomed to, to come back here. Even after she had realized that her idiotic childhood dreams were just that – dreams – she hadn't minded. But it was like her heart broke all over again every morning when she realized that she may very well be confronted with those idiotic dreams _every day_ for the rest of her life. She minded that.

All because of him. _No_, she corrected herself, _that's not fair. It's not his fault_.

Mimori sighed, leaned up against a tree, and watched the rain come down in sheets. It was surprisingly quiet under the canopy of leaves, thick enough that drops only sporadically came down on her head. It was soothing, the loudness of the rainstorm, so loud she couldn't hear herself think. She loved the waxing and waning of storms in the summer.

It hadn't been an awful year, not entirely. Ryuho seemed bewildered more than anything, and it had been a help to have another set of hands around_doing _something. Mimori suddenly felt a little guilty. She had just retreated into the familiar and safe after he'd reappeared and her carefully constructed world had collapsed – it was easier to sit outside with Cougar than it was to sit in her study with Ryuho, it was easier to laugh with Asuka while she tried not to make a mess of dinner, it was easier to ask Kazuma for help with little projects than it was to turn to _him_. No wonder he was bewildered. He was being treated like an outsider and –

_Oh, for the love of – just _stop, she told herself. She'd been making excuses for him for – _years_. She wasn't going to feel bad because she hadn't been nice enough … she'd tried that once, hadn't she? She was gracious enough these days, and could he really ask for more? Did he even _want_ more than the superficial relations they had? Or did he just _want_ to prove that he still had the upper hand?

"Well, you _don't_," she said aloud, immediately regretting even thinking such a childish thing. After all, it wasn't as if she was glad Ryuho had his moments of misery and bewilderment. She wasn't pleased their relationship was, if anything, icier than it had been at HOLD. But what could she do? "A tiger never changes its stripes," Tachibana had said to her one night as they sat out over a cup of coffee.

"But tigers are also kind enough to finish their prey off in one fell swoop," Mimori had responded glumly. "They don't chew off a leg and then return to finish the job a few years later" Tachibana had choked on his coffee, looking both horrified and totally amused, and Mimori had to laugh despite herself as she thumped him on his back while he coughed and sputtered.

* * *

The rain was coming down in sheets as Tachibana sat on the porch swing, arm around Cammy's shoulders. There wasn't much to do today, and besides, not much could get done in a torrential downpour. Cammy was chattering away in her nervous voice – the one that ran words together at a rapid clip.

"What's wrong?" he asked, interrupting a stream about coops and chickens and wet chabo feathers. Cammy looked startled, blinking her eyes rapidly a few times as she focused on him.

"Wh – what? Nothing's wrong, we managed to get the coop patched before the rain started, didn't we?" she responded brightly. Tachibana smiled, reaching up to push away a tendril of damp hair that clung to her forehead.

"You're using your nervous voice, that's all. And twisting your hands like there's no tomorrow," he responded. She swallowed hard.

"Oh … oh, I guess I am, aren't I?" She balled her hands up. "I'm just a little worried; I saw Mimori storm off somewhere earlier and I don't think she's come back. And Kazuma was raging that Ryuho was supposed to come help with the roof, so I just wonder …" Cammy trailed off and shot a glance over to Mimori's house. Tachibana narrowed his eyes.

"Asuka, she's done such a good job of keeping it all together. I mean, Mimori _never_ fails to just get things done … well, except for her cooking, but-"

"I just don't understand how she can even stand to look at that jackass," he interrupted, still unable to comprehend the hows and whys of the Ryuho-Mimori relationship. "Really, Cammy. I know she must be unhappy, Cougar's mentioned it in passing and you can just _see_ it on her face sometimes when they're in a room together. And Ryuho … he alternately follows her around like a puppy and then stomps off to sulk!"

"But what is she supposed to do, Asuka?"

"I don't know, she could do anything. She's Kiryu-_sama,_ for the love of – Honey? What's wrong?"

She just looked dejected, a wholly un-Cammy like look upon her face. "Don't you remember how sad she was when we first moved here? _Sad_, not unhappy. It was worse than unhappy, it was like she would just lie down and die if she didn't have responsibilities. And then she got better … and then Ryuho came back, and now she's just _unhappy_ all the time, and it doesn't seem fair. I just wish there was something …" She trailed off again.

She amazed him sometimes – most of the time – by how absolutely giving she was. Always fussing over someone, worrying about something, but not in the way the busybodies of the village did; always with some concern for how she could _make it better_. He'd loved her for years, but this side of her that had emerged slowly – well, it only made Tachibana love her more. He squeezed her hand. She smiled a little and leaned her head on his shoulder.

"You know, Kanami says that everything will be fine. I think … she knows, even if she can't explain it to us, that those two aren't going to go down in a blaze of glory. But Asuka," Cammy paused. "Sometimes I wonder if they'll even make it to that point before you or Kazuma throttles Ryuho. Before _I_ throttle Ryuho."

He had to smile a little. Though Mimori was highly respected and well thought of, people still treated her like a child when she was absent – _What to do about Mimori?_ was a frequent topic of conversation amongst her friends, and even the villagers at large. As if she was some fragile hot house flower, ill suited to life in the real world. Beloved Kiryu-sama, who needed to be protected from the green-haired boy – no, man – who had reappeared like a ghost.

"I think … I think Mimori will be able to handle _him_, Asuka. But that won't stop me from worrying about it."

The sighed in tandem, and continued to watch the rain pouring down in sheets.

* * *

He had followed her footsteps at a rapid pace, but slowed as soon as he caught site of her, unsure whether or not to proceed. Deciding that at the _very_ least he needed to apologize for his outburst, agitating as the thought of it was, he stepped out of the rain and under the canopy of thick leaves.

Under different circumstances, he might have taken the time to admire her silhouette, the long curving line from ribcage to hip as she leaned against a sturdy tree, looking out towards the sea. He noted it as he always did – _beautiful woman, was a beautiful girl, still beautiful_ – but went no further. More important matters were at hand.

She made him feel like a child again, awkward and unsure. Her tongue was sharper these days, she was less … _docile_, he supposed. Not that she'd ever _really_ been docile and obedient, but she didn't even attempt to keep up an outward appearance, the _pretense_ of it. _Kiryu-sama_ took orders from no one, and seemed so self-assured and confident of her place and station in life, one that she had _earned_ – not been handed on a silver platter. He no longer had any mantle of authority to retreat behind, and they both knew it.

She must've heard him, but didn't turn around or give any indication that she was conscious of his presence. He cleared his throat.

"Mimori?"

"Ryuho," she responded, sounding tired and – if his hearing didn't deceive him – like she had been crying.

He stepped closer to her, and she remained motionless.

"I came to apologize."

"Apology accepted," she responded after a lengthy pause. "But if you don't mind, I'm rather tired and not in any particular mood to talk." He took an involuntary step back at those words, spoken so crisply and cleanly – almost lacking emotion – where had _Mimori_ gone? He supposed this was his cue to leave, but …

They stood there for what seemed like hours, though Ryuho knew rationally that it was merely a few minutes. She was trembling slightly – barely perceptible to the eye – but he could see her nails digging into the pale, soft flesh of her upper arms as she stood there. And then she let her shoulders slump and sighed. He took a few steps closer.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "You just hit a sore spot."

"You don't have anything to apologize for. I overstepped the bounds of decency by several miles."

More silence. He stepped a little closer, and it occurred to him that it was like … like stalking prey. It took all his self-control not to stop and give an exasperated sigh – when had it come to behaving like this? They were two former children of high society, for heaven's sakes; so much for all that carefully structured social training.

"I don't bite, Ryuho, nor am I going to run away; besides, you're doing a terrible job of sneaking up on me." She _did_ sound exasperated, but the hurt in her voice was palpable. Dealing with Mimori was an exercise in plumbing the depths of exactly _how_ utterly incompetent he was when it came to dealing with matters of the heart.

She looked over her shoulder at him, or at least in his general direction. "Will you answer a question for me?" Her voice was full of hesitation. He nodded. She shifted herself slightly and looked back out towards the rain and the fields.

"Why have you stayed?"

He was taken aback by the words, though as he processed her question, he recognized that the tone wasn't accusing.

"I don't know, truthfully. I suppose because it felt … right … to stay here."

More silence. Interminable silence. Could they really go on like this forever? Uncomfortable silences, days passed with only the barest of pleasantries exchanged? _Pleasantries_ wasn't even the right word, he thought. Brief acknowledgements of the other's existence. '_Yes, hello, how do you do? We're still existing in the same space_.' He supposed he'd always taken it for granted that Mimori would try to close the space that he deliberately put between them. But now …

"The first three years were the hardest, you know," she said slowly. "Miserable times. _Miserable_. And then Asuka and Cammy came back, and they goaded Cougar into coming, too. And things got better. We settled into life, and we were – dare I say it - _happy_. Or at least as happy as circumstances allow. And then-"

"Mimori," he cut her off, putting a hand out to touch her shoulder. She stiffened for a brief second, but made no attempt to move away. "You don't … have to explain." Where was this halting voice coming from? "I blundered back into your life, and I probably should … move on."

She gave him – well, more precisely, his hand – a withering look. "Don't be ridiculous. Leave and do what, go where? Leave – so I can spend the next six years wondering and worrying until you decide to stumble in again?" She laughed, and she sounded more than a little bitter.

She sighed again and rested a hand on top of his that was still on her shoulder. "No … I wasn't suggesting that you leave, Ryuho. I was just … trying to explain that things haven't been sunshine and roses since ..." She trailed off, and looked at his hand uncertainly. "We've had a roof over our heads, and plenty of happy times, but we're not … there are ghosts and memories that lurk around here. Lots of them. They still do, I think they always will."

It had been cruel of him to imply otherwise, and he knew that; he'd watched her before as she sat staring off into the distance with a peculiar look on her face, which she always wiped off as soon as she realized someone – anyone – was watching.

Mimori wearily pushed her shoulder up off the tree trunk, shrugging his hand off gently, turning and throwing the briefest of smiles towards him. "I have to get back, I promised Cammy I'd help with dinner and the rain is finally letting up." She walked slowly, deliberately.

He couldn't help but watch her, wanting to grab her wrist or – for once – say the right thing, make her laugh like she did for Cougar. Make her look at him with something other than absent minded kindness or contempt.

"Mimori?" He wanted to ask about her pendant - why had she taken it off and where was it? Didn't it matter anymore?

She paused, turning her head slightly. "Yes, Ryuho?"

"I …" Silence; nothing but the sound of rain falling on leaves. He was sure he couldn't force the words out even if he knew what to say. "Where's your pendant gone?"

He could see her put her hand up to the place where it had rested for the past decade and change. "It's … I …"

She turned around and looked at him, and he wanted to get away from the searching look in her eyes, but couldn't help but return her gaze.

"I woke up this morning and felt like I was going to suffocate under the weight of it," she said in a quick burst. "And I - I took it off, Ryuho, because I've been carrying the past around for too long, wishing and hoping and worrying over it. And I can't do it anymore. I just _can't_."

He gaped at the forlorn expression on her face, as it was – as long as he could remember – the firs time he'd ever come face to face with her sadness like this. He'd always been able to turn away in years prior, but …

She put her hand over her mouth, hand still grasping at the emptiness formerly occupied by that little shard. Wordlessly, she shook her head sadly and stepped out into the rain.

A memory that he had carried with him for twelve years, nearly thirteen, came rushing back as he watched her pick her way through the mud puddles and deep muck, and it was as if he was once again eleven, standing in front of his family's fine house, looking out on a wide and well-groomed expanse of lawn. Watching a primly dressed Mimori – much younger, but still just as graceful – walk out of his life, accompanied by some driver or another. She had promised to come back, given him a sweet kiss as children do, and then had been whisked off, back to her life on the Mainland.

"_I think if I work especially hard, I'll be able to come back soon_. _But I'll be back no matter what, I promise_." And like that, she had been gone. She'd turned right before they reached the car and smiled. He'd been too sad to smile back; instead, he'd gone back to his room and cried until he ached all over. Head stuffed under a pillow to muffle the sound, of course; God forbid one of the servants should have heard and told his father, or he had bothered his beloved mother. Zetsui had lain beside him, though. It had occurred to him later that moment was the first time he had felt so small and utterly, utterly alone. It wasn't the last.

Mimori had kept her promise, but had he kept his? He couldn't even remember _what_ he had promised her, but he was sure he must have said something. He would've walked through fire for her at that point. _You still would, idiot _some part of his mind said. _If given enough time to thoroughly investigate the situation from all angles_, another responded. _And by which point she'd be long gone, or burned to a crisp_.

Ryuho often wondered if_ anyone_ would ever just … stay.

* * *

Cougar stood in the doorway leading out to the chickens and Mimori's tree, watching the rain beat down on the fields beyond; the wind rustling through the tall grass made it look like the sea. Mimori had gone somewhere, and by the widely spaced footprints in the mud, he guessed Ryuho had gone after her at a rapid clip once the rain started to fall. How it was possible for one person to be socially incompetent was totally beyond Cougar; he'd pondered it on more than a few occasions since Ryuho had shown up under Mimori's tree, and never could quite come to a conclusion as to why he was so damn stubborn.

"Penance. What a terrible excuse for letting yourself be miserable," Cougar said to the spider that was barely clinging to the rain-drenched screen door.

Still, despite the fact that Ryuho had reappeared and Cougar caught Mimori looking dejected more frequently, he couldn't be too angry. _You have to feel sorry for anyone who wastes a life like that_. Cougar felt sorry for most parties involved, and wondered what Scheris would have to say about the whole affair. He sometimes wished her spirit would come back to haunt Ryuho into actually _living_, as opposed to merely existing.

The drenched spider was clinging desperately to the screen, its long little legs waving frantically. Well, at least Mimori was still more than happy to drink wine and watch the stars, or banter with him over books. She had told him recently that if they were living on the Mainland, she'd like to write a big journal article on everything she'd learned about the effects of alter power on users' bodies. "It's a wonder you're still here!" she'd exclaimed, then looked down at her hands suddenly. Tears had neatly fallen on those little white hands of hers, still lady-like after years of playing country doctor-veterinarian.

"I'm sorry," she'd sniffled out, trying to hide her red nose and weepy eyes, "I just – I just hate to think of what I'd do without you. I don't think I could … make it through a whole day."

He'd taken her hand and replied with the utmost seriousness that he'd be around as long as she needed him; and it was true, or at least he believed it. It seemed to him that the pace his body was giving at had slowed in the past two years; he had a feeling Mimori would be inclined to agree if she went back through her notebooks full of charts and numbers and graphs and measurements and notes. She'd smiled weakly at him, so he'd insisted on an impromptu star watching night and told her silly stories until she begged him to stop, her ribcage hurt from too much laughing.

And so it went. Mimori and Ryuho were miserable in each other's presence and out of it, but at least Cougar was there to make sure Mimori didn't lose herself in her misery, what with having that damned childhood thorn stuck in her side every morning. Everyone in the little town had their roles; Cougar was pretty sure his was to be keeper of Mimori's happiness. And he could think of worse fates in life.

He heard the slam of the front door and Kazuma's boots on the hardwood of the kitchen.

"Where in the hell has that asshole gotten off to?" he raged, and Cougar shook his head and laughed. If there were two days in a row where Kazuma and Ryuho managed to refrain from having a standoff, it was considered a good week.

"Hell if I know, what's he gone and done now?"

Kazuma glared out the screen door, looking like he expected to find Ryuho wallowing out back with the chickens. The little spider had crawled down onto the trim that separated the top screen from the bottom, apparently deciding that discretion was the better part of valor. "We were_supposed_ to patch the roof on Cammy's god damned chicken coop – who in the hell thought _seventy chickens-_"

"Chabos," Cougar corrected.

"Whatever, they look like fucking chickens to me and they probably taste the same. Cammy's got a screw loose, acting like they're children or something. '_But Kazuma, they're getting wet, they _hate _getting wet_.' I really wanted to say the stupid chickens could just-"

"Right, chabos are getting wet, you two boys were supposed to patch the roof, et cetera." Cougar watched Kazuma bemusedly as the younger man glared contemptuously out at the rain.

"And I've been on top of that fucking coop for the past two hours and he was _nowhere to be found_. What does he do besides mope around? Nothing! Should've told his ass to keep walking last summer, Mimori would be happier, I'd be happier, and we wouldn't have to deal with the bastard moping around all day and being _worthless_."

Cougar let Kazuma rant on – for all of Kazuma's brashness, he hated upsetting Mimori or Kanami, so he raged to Cougar instead. Cougar listened half-heartedly, finding it more interesting to watch the rain and the little spider frantically scuttling back and forth on the narrow wooden ledge, tentatively testing the screen now and again, apparently thinking about making another ascent. What was that old children's rhyme? The one with the spider who never did quit ….

"… and Mimori's miserable and I can't believe you're _letting_ him behave like that. If I were you, I'd -"

_That_ caught Cougar's attention. "Letting him behave like what? He hasn't _done_ anything at this point - which is the problem, of course, depending on your vantage point - but it's not my place to interfere." And it was true, it wasn't. Short of Ryuho doing something really unforgivable, which didn't seem likely, there wasn't anythingfor him _to_ do, besides making sure Mimori was mostly happy.

"I thought you loved her."

Cougar turned his head slowly, wondering how to compose his answer without biting Kazuma's head off. "I do love her. And she loves me. But there's a difference between loving and being in love; there's a difference between needing to shelter someone from life and being their comfort when things go to shit. I don't know what will happen with those two-" the little spider was slowly making his way back up the screen, the rain had let up and he was having a bit more success this go around, "And it doesn't really matter, because our Lady Doctor-Veterinarian will always have me to rely on, no matter what. Maybe you'll understand one day."

Kazuma huffed, looking perplexed.

Cougar could only laugh a little, shake his head. Maybe that was the problem – despite the fact that "the boys," as Cougar referred to them, were in their early twenties, they were still playing at being adults. Testing the waters beyond a life solely devoted to fighting. Or maybe it was just that Cougar was getting older. "You're going to be over the hill soon, old man, nearly _thirty_," Mimori liked to tease, and it was true, he was past youthful idiocy for the most part. Maybe that was why he could only watch Kazuma and Ryuho with moderate interest, not caring to interfere. Because they needed to fall flat on their face now and then; Ryuho needed to sort his head out himself; Kazuma needed to learn that his life was, in fact, good for more than fighting.

"Or maybe not, Kazuma, you're still the same bull-headed idiot you always were, just a little older." Cougar gave Kazuma a sly grin and watched him puff up, ready to launch into one of his tirades – "_God dammit Cougar, don't even start, or maybe your mind is going in your old age and you've _forgotten …"

_And so it goes_, Cougar thought. _And so it goes._ He hoped Ryuho was at least keeping Mimori out of the rain; the last thing Kiryu-sama needed was pneumonia.

* * *

_We who are left, how shall we look again  
Happily on the sun or feel the rain,  
Without remembering how they who went  
Ungrudgingly and spent  
Their all for us love, too, the sun and rain?  
_

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, "A Lament"


	6. The Year of the Hare

Insert standard disclaimer here – I don't own Scryed, Wallace Stevens, _kunqu_, or much of anything else, for that matter, and I'm certainly not making a profit off of _any_ of this.

_**The Year of the Hare**_

Tori/yǒu. The tenth Earthly Branch. Eighth Lunar Month. Ruling hours: 5 to 7 pm.

… _To be, in the grass, in the peacefullest time …_

_And to feel that the light is a rabbit-light  
In which everything is meant for you  
And nothing need be explained;_

_Then there is nothing to think of. It comes of itself;  
And east rushes west and west rushes down,  
No matter.  
_

Wallace Stevens, "A Rabbit As King of the Ghosts"

* * *

Mimori Kiryu had been to a number of weddings, many of which were equivalent in cost to the GDP of a small country, but she was sure she had never been to one so happy as that of Tachibana and Cammy. She smiled as she let herself out the gate, into the quiet of the early evening; she was feeling a bit heady thanks to the champagne and wanted some time to regroup before "Kiryu-sama" made some terrible faux pas in front of the whole town.

Cammy looked resplendent; a dress of pretty silk, dredged up from someone's attic, in a vintage-looking cut, her hair twisted up in a loose bun – but she looked so _happy_, Mimori was fairly confident Cammy could've shown up in an old bathrobe and still looked beautiful. She'd confessed to Mimori that she would've liked a fancy wedding, the kind that she saw in picture books as a child, but it seemed so out of place, and besides, where would one get any of the trappings ….

"My mother always said that it was more than a little sadistic to truss brides up like stiff little dolls, as if they were marching off to be sacrificed or something," Mimori had said, recalling the pictures of _her_ parents wedding day – both parties looking extraordinarily serious and a little frightened, Mimori's mother dolled up in the traditional garb and makeup. "Besides, I think you'll be gorgeous just as you are."

And she was. Everything had gone off without a hitch – a nice simple ceremony, dinner, and now music and laughter and champagne …. Mimori looked at her watch, surprised it wasn't even six o'clock. The days were shortening at a rapid pace and the last light of the sun was quickly retreating on the horizon. "_All the more hours for star watching, my dear_," Cougar had pointed out.

_Nearly a full moon_. Bright enough to see by; and there were the stars, cart wheeling their way across the sky. She turned back to look at the rambling farmhouse; the owners had graciously offered the space, since the compound was big enough to host twice as many people as lived in the town. People milled about inside and out, and the light and shadows being cast from the inside bathed the whole area in a warm and faint glow. Children were gallivanting around the front lawn, the younger ones tumbling together like puppies or colts, the older ones separated off into more sedate groups, playing at being grown ups. Cougar's riotous laugh, toast after toast ….

She took a few steps back, just wanting to take in the scene. It was a bit like being young again, the fantastic parties her parents – well, her mother, really – used to throw for any occasion. Weddings, graduations, anniversaries, just because …. Mimori loved those parties; when she'd been young, before they'd come to the Lost Ground, they were amazing spectacles of beautifully dressed people and entertainment and decorations … and when she'd been older, they always meant a night off from studying. She settled herself in the grass, closing her eyes and just listening to the scene before her … and memories of other days, other parties that had come before.

Mimori took a sip of her champagne, trying to calm the memories and thoughts that were flooding her brain. Her parents, the Mainland – her old life. It had been – seven, eight years since she'd seen them. Yet she still had searing flashes of remembering. She supposed she always would.

She opened her eyes as she felt the grass near her rustle, and Ryuho was crouched down beside her, bottle of champagne in one hand, water in the other.

"Figured you probably needed a refill," he said with a slight smile, then "Is everything all right?"

Mimori turned her head to hide her smile, holding her half-full flute out for him. "Fine – no, more than fine. Just a little lost in thought, that's all." She pulled her knees to her chest. "Just thinking about the parties my … my parents used to throw."

Ryuho turned his head to look down on the house and the guests just as Mimori was. He filled her glass up, handed it back to her and sat down next to her. She felt the sudden need to talk; maybe it was the alcohol, perhaps it was that she finally felt comfortable with him again. Or maybe it was just that she knew _he_ would understand in a way the others couldn't.

"There was one party – I can't remember what it was for, I think maybe my aunt's engagement? She's a few years younger than Mama. I was five, I think. They hired a whole group of these musicians to do … arias and things, all sorts of different kinds. But I remember turning and watching my mother standing in the midst of this crowd of people that were swirling about, talking and laughing and toasting. And she was just standing there with her head tilted just so, listening to these pair of girls sing a foreign song."

Mimori paused, smiling at the memory. "I thought she was the most beautiful woman right then, standing still in the middle of all those people with the most wonderful expression on her face. I went to say goodnight to her later, after everyone had left, and she was in my father's study crying and listening to a recording of that same song. I couldn't tell if she was happy or sad, so I asked if everything was all right. And she just pulled me up on the couch, and we sat there and listened together; she sat there in her silk dress with her glass of wine, the most bittersweet look on her face. I was just thinking … I'm as old as she was that night, twenty-six. And it's a bit strange to muse on how different our lives were. Are."

Mimori leaned forward, trailing her hand over the grass that had already given up its color in favor of winter browns. "_See how spring blossoms have yielded their beauty, only to the dry well and these crumbling walls_." Her mother had whispered those lines to her that night, lips trembling even as she tried to smile.

"_What a pleasant feeling_," Ryuho followed up, a strange look in his eyes. Mimori looked at him curiously, wondering how he - but he only gave the closest thing he had to a smile these days, looking back down to the house.

"Don't you remember the party my parents threw, the one where-"

"Kiryu-sama!" A young voice – breathless from running – interrupted Ryuho. Mimori tore her eyes away from Ryuho to look up at the boy that stood above them. "Kiryu-sama! Why aren't you down at the party? Are you all right?"

Mimori laughed. "Fine, Seito. Thank you for asking, I just needed a breather." The boy got a contemplative look on his face, screwing his eyes up and looking to the stars.

"Kiryu-sama, are _you_ ever going to get married?" He looked back down at her. "I bet your wedding would be even better than Miss Cammy's."

Mimori could feel the color rising in her cheeks, not entirely sure how to respond to the frank and straightforward questioning of a … well, a kid. _Leave a six year old to ask the question that I'm sure all the adults are dying to ask_.

"Weddings aren't about outdoing friends, Seito dear," she said slowly, though she could think of a number of society belles who would disagree vigorously. "And when the time is right, then I'll get married."

That apparently wasn't a good enough answer for the little boy, because he put a hand on his hip and looked down disapprovingly at Mimori and Ryuho. "But – but Mama said that Ryu-san ought to -"

"_Seito_, WHAT do you think you are doing?" Seito's sister came out of nowhere and snatched him up by the wrist. "Apologize to Kiryu-sama and Ryu-san for bothering them." Seito looked up at his sister, ready to argue, but apparently thought better of it after seeing the look on his sister's face. He bowed solemnly and mumbled an apology. His sister rolled her eyes, then looked down at Mimori. "Kiryu-sama, I apologize. It's hard to keep an eye on the kids when there are so many of them." She, too, gave a bow, and dragged her little brother off back towards the house.

"I don't see what the big deal is, Mama _did_ say-" "Seito, _I_ said_ hush_."

Mimori's cheeks were burning and she wished she could just melt into the ground. Ryuho was staring straight ahead, mouth slightly open, a flush creeping up his face as well.

"So what party were you talking about?" she said quickly – a little _too_ quickly, she thought, but _anything_ to change the subject. Ryuho looked at her blankly for a second, then shook his head and looked back at her.

"Right, party – don't you remember? The costume party my mother threw for somebody's birthday? We didn't have to dress up, but all the adults did." It occurred to Mimori suddenly that she had never – well, almost never – heard Ryuho speak of his childhood or his parents. Certainly not since he'd returned.

"Costume party? …._Oh_. Yes, of course, didn't all the couples dress up as different literary pairs or something silly like that? It's the sort of thing I wouldn't believe still happened if I hadn't seen it myself several times, a party straight out of an old novel or something. The gardens were decorated and everything. Your parents were the Weaving Girl and the Cowherd, and mine were … they were …." Mimori shut her eyes, trying to remember.

"I can't recall, but I do remember your mother was kitted up in alternately the most striking costume and the most ridiculous, because she looked like one of those opera girls, what with the makeup. But I think there were about 30 geishas of various periods running around, so she wasn't terribly out of place. Don't you remember?" He looked at her, and Mimori didn't think she'd ever seen his eyes looking so warm, not since they were children at least.

She broke into a smile, the picture suddenly clear as day. "And the music – there was music, wasn't there? There were little pavilions and everything - it _was_ like stepping into a play. I think I had my first glass of wine that night."

"And we were sitting over in a corner of the garden, and your mother drifted by but she stopped as soon as she got to us. And I remember she tilted her head and smiled at us, and came over to say-"

"_What a pleasant feeling, what a lovely scene. How can I not be enchanted? Such joyous moments - in whose courtyard can this be?_" Mimori broke in and recited, her mother had said those words so many times over the years that she didn't even have to think about it. She could hear her mother saying them in her lovely hushed voice that she so rarely used …. She looked back down at her knees, smiling, holding out her glass for a little more champagne.

He smiled at her as he topped off her glass. "I've always remembered that, she had the most peculiar look on her face. Bittersweet, like you said. And I thought it was strange she was asking whose courtyard she was in, because of course it was _our _garden and she knew that. I think Mother explained what in the world she was talking about later."

They sat there in companionable silence for a few minutes, and Mimori wondered if he felt as warm on the glow of old memories – _happy_ memories – as she did. It occurred to her that they should probably get back to the reception, but it seemed that whenever she and Ryuho managed to fall into a totally comfortable rapport, _someone_ came rushing up and the moment was lost. She glanced at her watch; it wasn't quite 6:30, surely Cammy and Tachibana wouldn't miss them for a while yet.

A pair of children – Mimori was trying to recall, they were about 10 or 11 – caught her eye. Even from the distance, Mimori could see the bashful looks on both their faces as the girl tentatively took the boy's hand. She nudged Ryuho. "Look," she whispered, trying to point discretely. "Those two have been thick as thieves since they were really little." She couldn't help shaking her head and smiling.

"I think I'm getting old," she said with a laugh, looking back and forth between Ryuho and the little lovebirds. "I see things like that these days and go '_I was that young once? Really?_'. And I just want to run up, grab them by the shoulders, and make them promise to remember those moments that seem so completely and utterly inconsequential _now_, but in the coming decades …."

He said nothing, just looked contemplative – not happy, not sad, just somewhere in between. _Well, _she thought to herself, _it is bittersweet. Just like the look on Mama's face all those years ago _….

"Do you remember," she asked suddenly, deciding to take advantage of whatever mood was pervading the evening and continue this game of recalling happier times, "That dinner party my parents had? I suppose we'd been in the Lost Ground two months or so …."

* * *

Cammy put a hand up to the windowpane, looking out to the scene out front. The children of the town were, for the most part, out on the lawn, and she thought they cut a lovely picture in the hazy light of lanterns. For all the horror stories everyone liked to tell about weddings ("My dear, anything that _can_ go wrong, _will_," one well-intentioned but crotchety old lady had told her quite seriously two days prior), it had been nothing short of a perfect day.

_Just as it should be_, she thought. Perhaps not the wedding she would've dreamed of as a young girl, but at this point in her life, it seemed perfect. Long tables heaped with enough food to feed an army – she swore the women of the town had been cooking for days, and she was tickled that she and Asuka had been welcomed into the fold to such a degree since moving here five years ago. _Has it really been that long_? There were days it seemed like yesterday … a little village, sleepy and dusty, full of "musty smells and mildew," as Mimori often recalled. It sprawled now, was big enough to have stores and competing farms and _just_ about anything one could want.

"Tired already?"

_Of course, it has the _most_ important thing_, _too_ … She smiled up at Asuka as he slid an arm around her waist, and she leaned back into that familiar warmth.

"Not at all," she replied, catching his eyes and knowing that he must feel just as happy as she did. "Just thinking. We've been here over five years, but sometimes it feels like it was just yesterday that we came for a visit, doesn't it?"

"Mmm … sometimes." He rested his cheek on top of head and drew her a little closer. "So much has changed though. But you're just as beautiful as you were, like you haven't aged a day."

Cammy laughed at that. "I should _hope_ I have, even if just a little. Being stuck at 19 years old forever? Can you imagine? What a curse! _I_ think," she said, throwing a coquettish glance up at him, "You're _more_ handsome than you were when we first arrived, no – when I first met you! I was lucky to snatch you up when you were too young to know better," she teased.

He kissed the top of her head. "Too young to know better?" Mock haughtiness crept into his voice. "Hardly, darling, you played right into my hands;_you_ were the one that was too young to know better."

"You have a whopping six months on me. And did either one of us know enough to be sneaky?"

"No," he admitted, "We didn't. Fate just dealt us a spectacularly lucky hand. Or something like that."

Cammy had been trying not to smile like an idiot _all_ day, and realized that she was losing the battle miserably. _But what are you supposed to do when it feels like your heart will burst from happiness_? She closed her eyes and decided that of all nights, _tonight_ was the one to bask in it.

"Where's our Lady Doctor-Veterinarian, by the way? Cougar's been harassing me to find her - I convinced him that it would be more fun to tell embarrassing stories about her than stories about us, and he wants to make sure she's around to blush."

"She's out there," Cammy tapped a finger on the windowpane.

"Is she? I don't – wait a minute, is that – what is _he_ doing out there?" Asuka dropped his voice to a surprised whisper.

"Oh, I asked him to take Kiryu-sama some more champagne, as her glass was looking a little empty when she wandered outside," Cammy said with as much nonchalant airiness as she could, trying to press her lips together in a demure smile.

"But they look like they're _arguing_." Asuka sounded horrified. Cammy looked closer.

"It _looks_ like they're playing at arguing, if you ask me. Besides," she said, smiling as sweetly as she could. "I told our green-haired friend that if he upset Mimori on my wedding night, I'd wring his neck." Asuka had been taking a sip of champagne and choked, then broke into a roar of laughter that would do Cougar proud.

* * *

"What do you _mean_ it wasn't a kiss, of _course_ it was!"

"It was _not_, I wasn't even _twelve_, for the love of -"

"What does _age_ have to do with anything? Lips met lips! That's a kiss!" Mimori cried indignantly.

"It was two seconds at the very most, certainly not long enough to count." Who knew Mimori would get so outraged about the subject, Ryuho grumbled internally.

"It does too!" Mimori huffed, and downed the remnants of her champagne. After making a charmingly un-ladylike movement of wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she held her glass out for him to refill. "Just because it wasn't a … an adult _kiss_, doesn't mean it wasn't a kiss. Because it _was _and it _counts_. We were kids, I'd be a little worried if we'd been drooling all over each other." She looked crossly back at the pack of children still running around the lawn.

He thought he could sit out here and look at her forever, then her face fell a bit.

"That was my first kiss, and now you're telling me it didn't count," she said softly. Just as quickly as her face had fallen, she shot him a coquettish glance. "Well, Ryu-san, since _my_ idea of a first kiss is obviously a bad one, let's hear about _your_ first kiss."

She was so disarming, vacillating as she did between this extraordinarily self-assured and grown up woman, and star gazing dreamer. From a woman who sounded put out and hurt over first kisses to a teasing coquette …. It occurred to him suddenly that they hadn't been this close in years, shoulder to shoulder and thigh to thigh. How had that happened? He hadn't sat down quite this close to her ….

"Well?"

"Hm? Oh. First kiss. I suppose …" Heat was creeping up his cheeks, had he ever talked about this with anyone? "I always thought it was the day you left the Lost Ground."

"_What_?" Mimori shrieked, causing the children to stop and look at what had gotten a rise out of Kiryu-sama. "If the time when you kissed _me_ doesn't count, the time I kissed _you_ certainly doesn't count! It was a quick peck and our chauffeur was standing next to me, for heaven's sakes!"

Ryuho supposed it was his turn to be indignant at the desecration of a cherished childhood memory, but Mimori broke off into laughter. Every time it seemed that she was calming down, she'd be off again.

"I'm … I'm sorry," she finally panted, "It's just that … It's just that …" She started to laugh again. "We're … sitting out here arguing … over _which two second kiss was our first_ … something that was … fourteen years ago … and it just seems so ridiculous but …." Mimori stopped laughing, and was just fanning herself with her hand, smiling – happy and _radiant_. "But it seems ridiculously sweet at the same time." She smiled at him and blushed.

A sudden urge seized him; before he could even stop to consider the consequences or the meaning, he leaned over and kissed her for the second or third time, depending on who was doing the counting.

And there were no fireworks.

No choirs of angels singing.

No stomach tied in knots, no heart fluttering.

Just a kiss. But it was a real, grown up kiss, one that he was sure neither of them would claim didn't count. No dramatic music, no heady buildup, no passionately whispered words. _Just_ a kiss, and _just_ Mimori … but that was worth more than angels and stars and _whatever it is_ _that people are constantly going on and on about_ ….

She seemed to melt into him, and he thought that he could sit here like this for the rest of his life, arm around her waist and just feeling that he was finally –_finally_ – doing something wholly natural and just … _right_.

She twined her fingers with his, and he wondered at the fact that she seemed entirely unsurprised by his sudden move. No trace of bitterness or anger over everything that had transpired since they were children – how was it that she was so forgiving? Fourteen _years_ since their lips had touched, and yet here they were again …. For once, there was no distance between them, no yawning gap of hurt and history separating them by miles. He tried to pull her closer to make the physical distance between them as small as possible, even though she was pressed as close to him as she could be in their current position. A lame attempt to make up for all those years when he willfully pushed her away?

It alternately felt like a mere second and decades that he'd been tentatively feeling out her lips, testing and tasting, but he opened his eyes in surprise when she pulled back. He was greeted with Mimori looking at him quite seriously, then she diverted her gaze back towards the house.

"I think we're causing a bit of a scene," she whispered, and he ached for her when her breath ghosted across his lips. He turned his head slightly, and there were two shocked children peering out at them from behind a tree. He looked back at Mimori. Nosey children were the last things he cared about at this particular moment.

He wanted to lay her down in the mid-autumn grass, kiss her until those beautiful lips were red and plump, tell her he was sorry it had taken him so damn long to give both of them this. Apologize for all the missteps along the way, tell her that he'd dreamed of kissing her for years, and that first time in his parents' garden counted and then the other time counted and then this _really_ counted and _please oh please oh please don't leave ever again_. Some part of him warned that he could lose himself in her, absolutely and totally; that acting like a giddy love-struck teenager was _wholly_ beneath him, and _by the way, since when has Ryuho Ryu ever begged_anyone _for_ anything? He'd beg and plead to keep her here next to him if he had to, he was pretty sure of that, _and_ feel no shame about it, so he silenced the alarmed part of him.

"So?" was the only response he could muster, because he wanted to kiss her again – and again and again and again, lurking children be damned. If it wouldn't mean extracting himself from Mimori, he had half a mind stride over and scare the living daylights out of the kids for ruining his second first kiss with _Kiryu-sama_. But really, could anything ruin it?

Mimori rested her forehead against his shoulder, and he could feel her shaking just a little – his first thought was that she was crying, that he had upset her, and then he realized she was laughing. "That," she half-laughed, half-murmured into his shoulder, "Was a _most_ un-Ryuho like thing to say."

He looked down to her – rather, her hair and that creamy stretch of neck and shoulders left bare by her dress – and suddenly felt shy and confused. "Is that … a bad thing?"

She sat up again and looked at him, eyes bright with laughter, and she merely shook her head as she caught his lips with her own. _This_ time, he was fairly confident that his heart skipped a beat.

* * *

Mimori let Ryuho pull her up gently after she regretfully pointed out that they'd been outside for quite a while and they should _probably_ get back to the reception. It was, after all, Tachibana and Cammy's night.

He seemed a bit dazed, and it didn't appear that he wanted to let her go anymore than she wanted to step away from him. She decided another few minutes wouldn't make any difference and leaned into him a little and wrapped her arms around his waist.

She thought of cracking some little joke, teasing about their earlier argument, saying anything at all, really, to break the silence. But she couldn't bring herself to risk breaking this feeling of … _closeness_. For once, there were no white elephants standing between them, unspoken names or bits of history. For once, he hadn't pulled away. So she closed her eyes and inhaled his scent instead – clean and simple, _just like one would expect_ – and listened to his heartbeat as she rested her head on his chest.

Maybe they would muddle their way to happiness one way or another. Who knew? She didn't want to dwell on what would come next, and was instead content to feel his arms around her and be enveloped in him. It wasn't often a person got a second chance at doing something for the first time, she thought, and this time around they were both old enough to appreciate it. She looked up at him and found that he was looking down at her with the softest expression she had ever seen in those wine-colored eyes, apparently not feeling the need to say anything any more than she was. He offered her an unsure smile. She smiled back.

_It's odd_, she thought as they stood there looking at each other, _my heart isn't sure if it wants to burst from happiness or break_. Happy? … Not unconditionally … but not melancholy, either. _No_. She knew; she had a feeling if someone leapt out from behind a tree and snapped a picture of them, she'd see that expression. Sweet. Bittersweet. That wonderfully conflicted happy-sad feeling.

She'd had days of thinking she'd shatter to pieces if someone breathed a little too heavily around her, but this was a different feeling – she felt just as fragile, but it wasn't borne out of grief or sadness. Even so, she tightened her arms around his waist a little, and marveled at the fact that he was holding her in the same way – not stepping back, not launching into any diatribes about _duty _and _honor_ and _debts owed _and the fact that she was obstinate as a mule and just wouldn't quietly go back to the Mainland for her own good. Just holding her like she'd wanted to be held by him all those years. Fourteen, to be exact.

How had she taken this feeling of contentedness for granted all those years ago? How had she not known? _Why does it take so long to realize everything is so very fragile?_ _How are all those children still running around, not realizing what just happened?_ Of course, she hadn't realized at that age either. A twin blessing and curse of childhood, she supposed.

She longed to put her head in her mother's lap and tell her that she finally understood, finally got it, finally knew that feeling …. But for the moment, Mimori contented herself with feeling the strong heart that beat right below her cheek and committing the moment to memory, because as she well knew, such things are precious and fleeting.

* * *

_See  
how spring blossoms have yielded their beauty  
only to the dry well and these crumbled walls.  
What a pleasant feeling, what a lovely scene.  
How can I not be enchanted?  
Such joyous moments.  
In whose courtyard can this be?  
... It seems we've met before  
And beheld each other in solemn awe  
Words are not needed in such beautiful silence.  
_

Mash up of two arias from _The Peony Pavilion,_ Ming dynasty play and traditional Chinese opera (English translation from the subtitles of the 2001 Hong Kong film_ Yóu yuán jīng mèng_)


	7. The Year of the Boar II

Just a slight diversion & a different look at Chapter 2, Year of the Boar – as New Year's week is just wrapping up here. And … it's another Year of the Pig (or Boar, whichever you prefer) this year, so it seemed appropriate. Content of substance coming up soon (I hope) & thanks to everyone who's still keeping tabs on this story – I know how it ends, I just need to _get_ there! But, in the meantime, xin nian kuai le (Happy New Year!)

* * *

She still jumped at the sound of every firework set off, though there must have been hundreds over the past few days.

She wasn't sure what was setting her so on edge. Fireworks had never bothered her before – well, maybe when she was very little, she did recall some incident of hiding under a side table in terror, one of her earliest memories – and indeed, she had loved the elaborate displays on the Mainland. But those had always stopped after some appointed time – ten, fifteen, twenty minutes – they had never been so random and haphazard. No one would've dreamed of setting off multiple volleys at 7 AM. Even ghosts weren't flitting around that early … or were they?

Mimori sighed and rested her chin on her knees, looking out into the darkness. "Cold night," she said to the mercifully silent night air, and sighed, burrowing deeper into her coat. Maybe it was the return to a more ancient custom that was bothering her. New Years had never been celebrated on the lunar calendar on the Mainland, but it was here. She had asked older residents as to the cause, but no one could give her a solid answer. Maybe it was appropriate, she mused, seeing as the passage of days was marked by more ancient traditions: harvests, weather, sun, and moon, deaths and births. Maybe it was being alone, having no one to mark such days with.

_A new year._ She could only wonder what it would bring, or if she even wanted to face it.

* * *

He watched her flinch as something screamed across the sky and exploded into trails of red and green. She looked so small and lonely, sitting alone by a sturdy old tree, her back to them. He'd almost forgotten how delicate she could appear.

"She's not doing very well, you know," Tachibana said while they stood and looked on the pitiful little scene. "That's why I asked you to come. I think … I think having you around will do her some good. At the very least, there's never a dull moment with you."

Cougar leaned up against the corner of the house – Mimori's house – and grimaced slightly as a stabbing pain came up his arm. "I don't know, Tachibana. I'm hardly the one she's been waiting for. Maybe it'll just make things worse." He looked back out thoughtfully to that little figure, who flinched again in response to a soft noise echoing somewhere.

He cast a glance down at Tachibana, who was looking practically despondent. "Cougar, I …"

_Well, since when has Straight Cougar been one to back down from a challenge?_ he thought to himself. Never had been before, and he didn't see any reason to start now.

"But I'll stay, because …" he trailed off, not entirely sure what to say. He'd stay, because … well, because it was _her_. And maybe she did need him. Whatever that meant.

* * *

She had been bracing herself for fireworks, not for a ghost. But at the sound of that voice – slower than she remembered, still as fond as it had ever been, maybe even more so – she rose slowly and turned around. Surely it couldn't be.

_But it is_, something in her mind said.

She gaped at him, he smiled down at her – the same cocky, self-assured smile she hadn't even realized she'd missed so much until this moment – and she tentatively put out a hand to touch him, afraid it would pass right through. It didn't.

Silence. Then more fireworks, coming from some far off place. But she didn't jump this time.

"Cougar?"

"Miss Minori?"

"Mi_mo_ri," she cried, and flung herself at him.

* * *

After declaring she wasn't sure she had ever been so glad to see one, and promptly bursting into tears – as if this was supposed to convince him of the veracity of her statement, he thought with a grin – she had berated him for five minutes and fussed like a worried mother.

"And it's _cold_ and you shouldn't be outside – look at this! A thin jacket! You're going to catch pneumonia and die!" she'd chided.

"You know that's an old wives tale as well as I do," he'd laughed back at her. It was good to hear her laugh, she had such a pretty one. It was good to have her sitting beside him, holding on as if – as if she didn't, he'd just disappear.

At some point, she'd gone quiet and rested her head back on his shoulder, and he'd noticed his shoulder getting wet (and colder – perhaps a thicker jacket _would_ have been a good idea).

"Mimori?"

A snuffle – he never thought he'd hear _her_ make any noise like a snuffle, what would her mother say? – and a hiccup. She didn't look up, but a half-choked voice that didn't sound like her replied.

"Cougar-" She pulled away and looked at him, eyes red from crying. "Don't leave. _Please_ don't leave. I couldn't bear it right now. I just _couldn't_."

And without any hesitation, he told her he never would, not until the bitter end, not until …. He didn't feel like saying until his body gave out, until he just couldn't hold on anymore – but if ever there was a creature worth holding on for, he thought to himself, it was Miss Minori.

"Mi_mo_ri," she corrected, and he realized with a start that he'd said that last part, too. But she was smiling.

"Happy year of the boar, Straight Cougar," she said, errant tears still coursing, but she was looking decidedly happier.

"Happy year of the boar, Miss Min- _Mim_ori," he replied, and squeezed her a little tighter.

He'd make it a good one for her, not let her get lost in her sadness, not let Tachibana or Cammy or Kanami worry endlessly. He hadn't practically come back from the dead to fail. No … no, they'd carve out a better path, one way or another. He was sure of it. It was, after all, a new year; and new years were made for nothing else if not improving upon the past.

And could any year spent with her _not _be better than the year before?

* * *

_Under the silk tree's flowers we lingered;  
Then, I once tried to explain to you:  
Joy and sorrow turn in the blink of an eye ..._

Xu Can, "Shuilong yin: _Matching Su'an's Rhymes, Moved by the Past_", trans. Charles Kwong


	8. The Year of the Dragon

A/N: An update! A belated Year of the Rat present; things have been insanely busy, plus I had a monstrous case of writer's block and wanted nothing more to fast forward to the next chapter. This is not my favorite nor my best work, but I have to get it out of the way to get on with things; my beta has also disappeared into parts unknown (MiraResQNU, where are you?). Despite its flaws, hopefully it proves sufficient, more or less, at least to scoot the story along.

_**The Year of the Dragon**_

Inu/kūn. The eleventh Earthly Branch. Ninth Lunar Month. Ruling hours: 7 to 9 pm.

_Swift jade-green dragons, birds with plumage gold,   
I harnessed to the whirlwind, and behold,  
At daybreak from the land of plane-trees grey,  
I came to paradise ere close of day.  
_

Qu Yuan, from "Encountering Sorrow"

* * *

She was usually so optimistic. It was one of those personality traits that Kazuma found deeply endearing – even when she was scolding or lecturing or patching up easily prevented injuries, he could tell that she felt if she just scolded or lectured or stitched well enough, eventually she wouldn't have to scold and lecture and suture. She attended to the townspeople like Cammy clucked over her chickens – clucking and fussing with more than a hint of a maternal air about her.

But she was flushed tonight, a vexed and sour expression on her face as she attacked Kanami's pork dumplings with a ferocious air.

"… And I'm expected to just _fix it_, you know, as if I haven't already set her wrist three times before. And I have to ignore the fact that we all know exactly how it happened _this_ time and every _other _time while I'm sitting there with them, waiting for the plaster to set up." A fierce slurp of noodles, a pause to catch her breath, and her tirade continued.

He let her rant. He liked the fact she talked to him almost as much as she talked to Cougar, and not just because he could see Ryuho getting angry every time she affectionately ruffled his hair. Though there was something particularly satisfying about seeing his eyes flash and his face redden ….

"And I'm tired and I _don't want to do it any more_." She slammed her chopsticks down with enough force to cause her bowl to wobble, sending scalding broth flying. He couldn't help but laugh as she sighed and wiped soup off her face.

"I don't know, maybe you should take a vacation. Isn't that what normal people do?"

"Since when have we been normal? And vacation where – the remnants of HOLY?"

"Hell, Mimori, I don't know – I just take a day off when I feel like it. Tell 'em to fuck off for a few days and bring their own damn sheep into the world."

She arched an eyebrow at him, and he could tell she was trying to hold back a smile. If she were his girl, he thought, he'd take her somewhere, or at least lock her in the house for a few days to force her to forget about work for at least a little bit. It was a shame the other one had come back, though she was happier these days. There was something to be said for that he guessed – or at least, that's what Cougar always said. But the way she looked sometimes, he wished he'd killed that asshole when he'd had the chance … though that left the question of Cougar, but surely those long legs would be worth a few months of -

"I'm going out for a bit. Don't let the house burn down in my absence." She got up, lithe and graceful, and reached over to ruffle his hair – a quiet click of the door, and she was gone.

He leaned over to inspect her bowl of dumplings and broth, thinking she must be pretty pissed to leave a few pieces of heaven wrapped in dough languishing at the bottom of her bowl.

He'd have to ask Cougar about locking her in the house for a few days. He'd have ideas.

* * *

She was good at hiding when she wanted to. Ryuho attributed it to being a clever little vixen and childhood games of hide-and-seek, which she had usually won when they played with the servants. He never minded a good challenge, and it was frequently the only time they were really and truly alone together – tonight, she was in the swale of a large hill, watching the sea.

"You shouldn't be out at night alone," Ryuho said with all the seriousness he could muster. "It's not safe."

"As if anyone would dare lay a hand on me with you and Kazuma around," she replied serenely, a smile playing almost imperceptibly at the edges of her mouth.

He bristled at Kazuma's name. It irritated him to no end that he was still the pompous ass he had always been, but had only grown worse with time, if such a thing were possible. He was lazy, incorrigible, talentless – save for eating Kanami's cooking, which he did with gleeful abandon – and most irritating of all, he'd tried to make himself as indispensable as Cougar. Ryuho remembered vague pangs of jealousy when she'd first arrived at HOLD – the leering stares and dinner conversation that bordered on lewd had rubbed him the wrong way, despite the internal struggle to convince himself that he just didn't care. But the rage that gurgled up whenever Kazuma managed to do something that made her radiate happiness was enough to make anyone–

"If you keep clenching your hands like that, you're liable to slice your palms open and the doctor's office is _closed_ this evening."

She was looking up at him with a slightly bemused look on her face. He flexed his fingers and settled next to her, the dying autumn grass crunching slightly as they both shifted slightly. Even the act of pressing together shoulder to shoulder was pleasant after a long day of not seeing her.

"Long day?" he queried, watching lines of waves rolling in and criss-crossing in infinitely repeating patterns.

"Bad day. I'm not sure I want to do this anymore."

He studied her out of the corner of his eye, the various looks flitting across her face in succession – he wondered precisely what she was thinking, since she was usually so careful and measured in what she said to him and when. "Well," he started slowly, "You could always retire."

She arched an eyebrow. "And do what? Raise chickens?" She smiled and shook her head. "I like to stay busy, you know, idle hands and all that." She pressed herself a little closer to his side. "A vacation might be nice, though. Someone told me today that I look _haggard _and that I need some time off. Or maybe I should just get a new haircut. Or take a vacation _and_ get a haircut." She put up a hand to touch the thick coil of hair at the nape of her neck, as if she were unsure whether its familiar weight was still there.

"Bangs, maybe … I don't know, what do you think?" She smiled, holding her fingers across her forehead and looking up, as if she could tell what the bangs-that-might-be would look like.

He looked at her, mystified. He liked to think he fell well outside the circle of somewhat brutish men who stomped around, beat their wives, and were generally so hyper-masculine that Ryuho could only roll his eyes when he crossed paths with one. Kanami had once fondly patted him on his head after they had cleaned the house from top to bottom and made dinner (Kiryu-sama having been banned from the kitchen for starting a stovetop fire) and, in a rare moment of un-tempered levity, declared he would make someone a nice househusband someday. But the occasional bouts of preening, worrying about age, talk of new hairstyles or clothes – he could only observe with a mix of horror and fascination, hoping Mimori didn't do anything drastic.

"I wish Cougar were here, I'd ask him. He's always been a keen observer of these sorts of things."

He was inwardly glad she'd declined the opportunity to accompany Cougar to meet with Mainland emissaries; it had surprised all of them when she had said no in a firm voice.

"I'm not sure why they'd want me to be there," she'd said over breakfast. "It's not as if I mean anything to those people anymore. And besides, I'm just a doctor. And birth calves in my copious amounts of spare time." A rueful smile, and that was that. She did have a wistful look on her face tonight, though, as she looked out at the ocean: she said once that she sometimes felt if she just squinted hard enough, she'd be able to see that land mass that seemed impossibly far away, the one she spoke of fondly enough when she was a little tipsy and red-cheeked from wine.

"Ever wondered where you'd be if you hadn't joined HOLY?"

He laid back and looked at the stars wheeling across the sky in age-old formations. "Sometimes," he replied. "Why?"

She shrugged her shoulders as she sat a little straighter and hugged her knees closer to her chest. "I don't know, just thinking. I can't help but wonder some days if this is where I'm actually supposed to be."

His stomach tensed. Earlier, Cammy had nonchalantly relayed what Tachibana had to say about the meeting with Mainland emissaries, and among the details about who else was there and what was being discussed had been a sentence about the interest a number of the people, important and not, had in the whereabouts of Mimori; he'd resisted the temptation to press her for more information and had instead let her blithely chatter on. But he couldn't help shaking the feeling, especially as he watched Mimori look over that seemingly vast channel that they all knew was really quite narrow, that a large part of her _wanted_ to go back.

"I mean, I can't help but be curious, you know? I wonder what all those people I knew are doing. Would I be doing the same thing? Would I be married? What kind of job would I have? Where would I live? Would my parents be happy? Would _I_ be happy?"

He looked back up at the stars. Oh, he wondered. He knew _she_ knew he wondered; and he knew that she wondered sometimes if he wouldn't just take off again for parts relatively unknown. It was one of those delicate balances between them: she never pressed him on the future, and he never asked her about the past. They never asked each other about the past. They lived, as they once had, entirely in the present, the now. He could die happy tomorrow, knowing he had spent his last night on earth with someone – with her – in the dying autumn grass, under the stars that were _ so close I can almost touch them!_, as she still exclaimed.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I just … it's hard not to think about it these days."

In one movement, he pulled her over to him, and she let out a sudden laugh as she lurched forward. He looked at her laughing and couldn't help but smile at her as she slid a leg over his hips and sat up.

"The stars are close tonight."

"They're always close, and I'm reasonably confident they've been like that for the past decade."

"Maybe." She cleared her throat. "Would you – what would you think if I went back? To the Mainland, I mean?"

It was his turn to raise an eyebrow suspiciously. "Go back permanently?"

She shook her head. "A week, a month. Something like that." He sighed inwardly. Why did she even bother to ask? Of course he didn't mind. It wasn't her fault he shocked himself with the amount of concern he had about what she did when he wasn't around. It wasn't that he didn't trust her, he just didn't trust anyone _else_, with a few notable exceptions.

He was protective of her. _Fiercely_ so, if one were to believe Cammy's admonishing hisses when he fixed his gaze too intensely on a villager that looked at her too lustily for his tastes. Ryuho didn't think this such a bad thing – after all, Kazuma watched over Kanami_ fiercely_, Tachibana for all his rarified airs would kill anyone who dared touch his wife in an unseemly manner, and even Cougar herded Mimori around protectively if he felt there was need of it.

"It's because you panic," she had chided him laughingly one night as they lay twined together. "You can see it in your face." He had narrowed his eyes at her, pride wounded from being laughed at.

"It's not panic," he insisted. "I never panic."

"Oh, my dear Ryu-san, but you do." She had nestled closer to him at that point, making him forget anything but the smell of her shampoo and the warmth of her body against his. As the rhythm of her breathing signaled she was falling asleep, he wondered why anyone – especially her – could berate him for wanting to keep her in his sight. Safe in his sight.

"If you need to go back, go back," he said in the most measured tone he could muster. "It's not my place to stop you."

She smirked. "A cop out if I've ever heard one."

They fell silent, Mimori looking at the sky and Ryuho looking at Mimori. She was crowned by stars, and he said silent thanks to whatever was out there that this woman – this Mimori, so unlike the one he had left nearly a decade before – was near to him.

* * *

Cougar sniffed his wine glass appreciatively. At the very least, the Lost Ground officials had managed to bribe the right people to speed the importation of some quality wine. French by the taste, if he wasn't mistaken – a fine taste indeed, something he hadn't had for years. He found political wheelings and dealings to be absolutely interminable – always had - made all the worse by groveling government officials and haughty Mainland bureaucrats. The fact that beady-eyed men came up to him with respectfully slouched posture and inquired in sniveling tones after _Kiryu-san_ was simply making the whole thing worse. He'd collected ten letters, two packages, a case of wine, a small bouquet of flowers, and one offer of a dog (which Tachibana had sensibly declined) for _Kiryu-san_ – and the night was barely half over.

Meetings – and speeches – lunches and dinners, plus this cocktail party of sorts – one excuse after another for flattery and brown nosing.

He wasn't even sure why they'd come, beyond the fact that Mimori had absolutely refused to even entertain the idea of accompanying the mayor of their little town to the diplomatic meetings. Oh, there had been invitations. And calls. And letters. The mayor even got down on his knees to beg her, and she still refused.

"My hard hearted girl, how could you refuse a groveling man?" Cougar had chided her laughingly afterwards. Her face had reddened as she all but stomped her feet in anger and irritation.

"I – am – not –_going_." Her voice rose on the last word, though it was below Kiryu-sama to raise her voice. Ever. So that was that.

And thus, he and Tachibana had packed up Mimori's sensible little hatchback two days previously – Cammy needed the Tachibana family car for the weekend – and headed out on an eight-hour drive that should have taken two.

"Were the roads_ always_ this bad?" Asuka had asked in semi-horror as they bounced over yet another washboard section of the road, while Cougar said a silent prayer the mechanic would cut them a good deal when he had to take Kiryu-sama's car in to have the shocks replaced.

"Yes," Cougar replied through gritted teeth. "I just used to drive faster and you were too busy mooning over the mere _thought_ of Cammy to notice. For the record, this is the _last_ time I trust your driving directions."

"… More wine?"

Cougar startled a little. Another symptom of this aging process Mimori worried about; he never used to startle. He looked down to a familiar shock of purple hair, whose owner was proffering a bottle of wine.

"No, I'm fine for the moment. Depending on how many more suspicious looking Mainlanders come up inquiring after Mimori, though, I may take you up on that later."

Tachibana leaned up against the wall and checked his phone surreptitiously. "You think Cammy's OK?" Cougar suspected he was asking the phone as much as he was asking him.

"Don't you think Mimori's a good enough doctor to call if there's a problem?"

"For all I know, she and Ryuho are out somewhere, staring at each other with googly eyes."

"Oh, as if _you've_ never looked at Cammy to the exclusion of anything else. Hell, it's Mimori – she's nothing if not worth getting googly eyed over."

"Of course I've looked at – hey, what does _that_ have to do with anything? Cammy's not a doctor, no lives are in jeopardy if I'm looking at her adoringly."

Cougar could only roll his eyes half-heartedly. By the best of anyone's calculations, Cammy was a mere three months along – the idea of a wee Tachibana being loosed on the world was terrifying enough, and that was without the prospect of a panicked Tachibana loosed on the world until Cammy was safely delivered of child.

"When have you ever _not_ been able to find our beloved Kiryu-sama if there was a problem?"

Before Tachibana could reply, a man brushed up against Cougar's shoulder. They regarded each other coolly – Cougar felt a faint glimmer of recognition, but couldn't place it.

"You – must be Cougar."

Mainland accent. Educated, upper class – a slight nasal sound and a rolling of vowels in a way people just didn't speak on the Lost Ground. Mimori had lost most of her accent years ago, but it sounded similar. The man was well dressed, as they all were – but there was something in the way he carried himself. Cougar was pleased to note his eyes were not beady, though they did glitter with a slightly unnatural light.

"I am. And you are …?"

"Maruyama will suffice." Tachibana leaned in a little closer to get a better look.

"Can I –"

"I believe you can. Rather, Kiryu-san and his wife believe you can."

Cougar blinked. Plenty of people had pressed letters and items into his hands with moderately suspicious airs about them, but this one was different. Not suspicious, exactly – Cougar had a feeling he _knew_ this one somehow – but odd nonetheless. Plenty of people had mentioned Mimori's parents, but this one seemed a little more intense, a little less groveling.

Tachibana leaned over a little further, arms crossed across his chest. "Help you with_ what_?"

"Oh, nothing taxing. Just delivering a letter. We wouldn't dream of asking you for anything more complicated."

Cougar didn't know whether to be offended or relieved – a letter was easier than an_ animal_ – but he put a hand on Tachibana's shoulder, feeling him puff up slightly as Tachibana was wont to do in stressful situations.

Maruyama pressed a thick envelope into Cougar's hand – Cougar eyed the imprint of a heavy antiquated seal appreciatively.

"It's of vital importance."

Cougar was starting to get irritated. The whole sham of 'diplomatic relations' had been reasonably tolerable, since both sides were going to extraordinary lengths to at least maintain the veneer of politeness. Mimori had predicted that – the pleasantries being exchanged on both sides, the obsequious bowing (as if some mayor of a tiny, isolated town was somehow on the same level as even the most middling of central government bureaucrats). But this Maruyama – this one was of a different stripe. He almost wished Mimori was here to put this man in his place.

"Of course we'll see that she gets it."

The man gave him an icy look, and disappeared back into the crowd. Cougar looked at Tachibana, who looked back at him with an equal amount of confusion.

"That was weird. Cougar, that was _really_ weird." Tachibana looked anxious. "Should we call Mimori?"

Cougar fingered the expensive paper of the envelope; he was half tempted to toss it out of the car on the way home, suspecting its contents were going to be upsetting to the Lady Doctor-Veterinarian. He felt tired suddenly, and leaned more heavily against the wall. It was time to go home – the crowds and people milling about were setting him on edge now, as he waited for another lurking Maruyama to pop up.

"I _do_ think it's time to get out of here," he said to Tachibana as he tucked the envelope inside his jacket. "But I don't think we need to call Mimori before we get home. No need to bother the Lady's stargazing."

Tachibana looked at him uncertainly, but Cougar could only smile, thinking of Mimori crowned by stars.

"There's time enough to bother her with the business of living." 

* * *

Mimori was humming.

Kanami tried not to smile, listening to her hum some old tune, but a humming Mimori was a happy Mimori; despite her sour mood earlier, good coffee always improved her disposition at least a little bit.

The needle flashed as she worked it in and out of the fine linen – Cammy had taught her to embroider a few months ago, and Mimori had offered up a cache of silk thread and various fabrics for Kanami's birthday. It had occurred to her one morning as she sat working a fantastic phoenix into silk that they had come far, for there to be time in the day dedicated to frivolous pursuits. It was nice to finally be able to make pretty things, things with no use.

"You know what you need, Mimori?"

Mimori's humming stopped. "A haircut and a vacation?"

Kanami looked up as Cammy laughed and leaned over Mimori, pouring a little more coffee into her cup. "No, though that might help. You need _students_. Or assistants. Some people that can handle the little day-to-day stuff, you know? You've been running yourself ragged for years, and there's really no reason for it."

"But students take time, Cammy. It'll take me twice as long to get anything done if I'm teaching, too."

Cammy pursed her lips. "But you spend so much time doing minor things. Asuka said several people came up to him and Cougar and suggested sending people here."

Mimori looked at the light fixture while she contemplated. Kanami knew she was tired and that she needed a break; one just had to look at her to know that. But Kanami could feel she was getting restless, too, and wanted to go somewhere, tired of the day to day routine that had marked their life for so long. Kanami liked routine, but she had more freedom than Mimori. Kazuma took her down to the ocean or out to the orchards sometimes, just to watch the sea or pick fresh fruit, Ryuho showed her how to carve tiny animals out of wood scraps, and Cougar taught her how to read the old and difficult literature that was full of strange characters.

She realized from time to time that the other girls her age gave her odd looks, and the boys mostly ignored her – that was because of Kazuma, who _was_ getting better at not throwing temper tantrums when someone paid her a pleasant compliment – and that she led a rather peculiar existence for a seventeen year old. But she didn't long for the awkward relationships and halting attempts to become 'grown up,' and there was nowhere she'd rather be than with the odd bunch of people who had found their way back together over the years.

She'd long ago come to terms with the fact that she was unusual; but they all were, in some way or another, with the possible exception of Cammy. But maybe even Cammy was strange by association. A noncommittal noise from Mimori shook her out of her thoughts.

"I don't know. I'll think about it. I don't like the idea of bringing strangers here, though. It just-" She was interrupted by the kitchen door flying open.

"We arrive bearing gifts! But no puppy, my dear, Tachibana turned that down on your behalf." Cougar breezed in with a rakish grin on his face, a fistful of envelopes in one hand and a small bouquet in the other. "I assume nothing happened while we were gone? Tachibana was nearly beside himself with anxiety the whole time."

"Shouldn't you be at home, darling? You must be tired," Tachibana inquired nervously.

Cammy sighed, and Mimori made a disgruntled noise. "The Lady Doctor-Veterinarian has assured me that I'm not dying of a horrible wasting disease, Asuka. Besides, I can't spend the next six months in bed, you know."

"Didn't you say you had things for Mimori, Cougar-san?"

"I did, didn't I." He proffered the stack of letters.

Mimori hesitated a moment before taking them.

Kanami kept an eye on her as conversation started flowing again. Mimori sorted through the letters carefully, inspecting the handwriting, recognition flitting across her face.

"It's awfully quiet. Where are the boys?"

"Hopefully not getting into trouble, I've already warned Ryuho that the doctor is out tonight and won't be back 'til morning." Mimori was reading intently but quickly, shuffling through page after page with an odd look on her face.

"Oh! Before I forget." Cougar pulled out another letter, a thicker one with a scarlet seal on the back. Mimori's mouth opened wordlessly as she caught site of the scarlet block. "What is it, Mimori?" Cammy asked, stepping closer with a curious look.

The webs of tension were building. Mimori seemed oddly calm about the whole thing, old letters, seals in scarlet ink. But the envelope held the promise of change. No wonder Cougar had been tempted to throw it out.

"Hm? Oh, just the seal. It's an unusual one."

Cammy looked unsure about that answer and Tachibana was white as a sheet, attempting to make quiet conversation.

Mimori read as Cougar watched and Cammy hovered; Kanami contemplated what would come next as she worked her needle in and out of the cloth. A small slip of something fell out from between the pages in Mimori's hand, and Tachibana picked it up.

"Who _is_ this guy?"

Mimori looked up absent mindedly, and reached for the little square photo, showing a startled Mimori looking at the camera and a shy boy looking at his feet. "Uh - oh, Maruyama. Family friend." She looked back down and continued to read at a lightening fast pace. "Why?"

"He was there tonight and not exactly the most … _pleasant_ person."

"I haven't seen him in years, but that's not surprising. He always did have a bit of a chip on his shoulder. I wonder why he was there? Did he say what his position was?"

"My dear Kiryu-sama," Cougar replied. "As if _we_ were important enough to inform of _anything_. He looked familiar, though," he mused out loud. "But I couldn't place him."

Mimori looked up. "That's _odd_. He was never rude, just – I don't know, you know how Ryuho can be standoffish? Same sort of thing."

"Oh, so this pattern of going after irritable ice cubes started as a youngster? That does explain quite a bit."

Mimori wrinkled her nose at Cougar, not trying to hide her smile.

Kanami looked up from her sewing as Mimori stood up suddenly, a peculiar look on her face, balanced somewhere between utter despair and happiness. Everyone looked at her, but she was reading intently. She looked up suddenly.

"Cougar, who gave this to you?"

"Mr. Ice Cube, naturally."

"I … I see." She looked down again. "I'll be in my study."

Kanami wondered if Mimori had always been so good at extricating herself from situations she didn't want to be in; but some things couldn't be escaped.

* * *

She knew she was wasting water, and she didn't care. Trying to stifle her sobs wasn't working, so she turned on the shower instead, hoping the sound of the water would at least muffle the sound of her voice.

This was too much. It was all too much. If only her mother hadn't started off with her childhood nickname, if only the letter hadn't been overflowing with love instead of the expected venom, if only … if only … and maybe if she hadn't noticed the blotches of ink where someone had cried over it, maybe she wouldn't be sitting on a bathroom flooring, sobbing into her bathrobe.

She'd tucked the letter into a desk drawer and fled for the relative safety of her bathroom, hoping no one would bother her and she could just get all the frustration and sadness and anger out. It occurred to her that the need to maintain a passive appearance had never really faded: the one social code she couldn't bring herself to break.

She snuffled into the arm of her bathrobe. Why today? All she'd wanted was to go home – and home meant anything not _here_. She knew that everyone agreed she needed a vacation from the tedium of dealing with everyone's medical emergencies, from the serious to the absolutely mundane, a vacation from sleepless nights and early mornings. But it was the day after day patching up of things she shouldn't _have_ to patch up that was wounding her. The young women who looked at her with frightened eyes as they recounted how they had yet again fallen down the stairs, the cows wrapped in barbed wire, the hypochondriacs who demanded attention every week but who at least _paid_. Kazuma's split knuckles, Ryuho's bad shoulder – would it kill them to make things easy on her and not go yowling around like the pugnacious teenagers they once had been?

What _would_ her parents think?

It only made her cry harder, the thought of her mother being ashamed at what she'd become, a daughter of the Kiryu family a lowly general practitioner who practiced veterinary medicine on the side. A doctor who lived in a rambling house with a chicken coop. Worse, it was a chicken coop that had _chickens_. It occurred to her that this was unseemly, sobbing while wedged between a bathtub and a toilet, and juvenile – crying for her _mother_. It had been ten years since she'd left, and hadn't she gotten used to distance and uncertainty? She was twenty-seven for heaven's sake. Everyone at home was fine, her parents were fine, her grandparents were fine, her friends were grown up and married and happy – so there was no reason for this overwhelming wave of grief.

She'd wanted this, hadn't she? She still wanted it … didn't she?

She opened her swollen eyes as she felt another foot against hers. She hadn't even heard the bathroom door open, but she felt the slightest bit of relief that she was staring into two crimson eyes. This was embarrassing enough, no need for Kazuma or Tachibana to find her half naked with a snotty nose and bloodshot eyes. He crouched next to her, inspecting her intently.

"What happened?"

She tried to take a deep breath but found her chest oddly constricted.

"Cougar brought home, um. A letter." A pause, and Ryuho reached for her hand, just the pads of her fingers. "From my … from my … my …." She started to cry again, not even wanting to say it. So she leaned into his warmth instead, sobbing on his arm instead of into hers.

"I want – to go –_ home_." She'd felt pathetic many times in front of him – the whole blasted time they were at HOLY had been lesson after lesson in accepting humiliation gracefully – but this was ridiculous. She couldn't believe she was wailing about wanting to go home, turn back the clock a decade – to Ryuho of all people, as if she had anything to be sad about. Her family was still in one piece more or less, wasn't it?

"I'm sorry … I'm so sorry, I just – I'm _tired_ and I just can't deal with this right now," she said in a choked voice, trying not to burst into tears. He patted her arm uncertainly, looking slightly bewildered. The fact that he clearly had no idea what to do just made her feel worse for putting him in this position, and fresh tears spilled down her cheeks.

_Poor Ryuho_, she thought as she cried, miserable that she was crying and that he was here to see all of this. _He never did learn how to handle hysterical women terribly well._

* * *

"Do you want to go down to the ocean?' he'd asked. 'Or sit on the porch? I could go see what Cammy's doing, or we could go find Cougar. Or maybe you'd like to-"

"I'd _like_ to go to bed."

He'd have walked to the ends of the earth if that would've stopped her sobs, so he was pleased the solution to the problem was even easier than anticipated. Mimori usually sought out Cougar when she was upset; _he_ always seemed to know what to do and what to say. Ryuho couldn't say it was a bad thing – it was better than his bumbling attempts to sooth her.

So he didn't try and console her, he just let her decide what would make her feel better. So she nestled into the covers and reached for books. _The Pillow Book_ made her laugh if they picked the right parts to read; as long as it wasn't one of her god awful medical textbooks, he couldn't care less.

"'_The smell of white paper is like the scent of skin of a new lover who has just paid a surprise visit out of a rainy garden,_'" she intoned in what Cougar always described as her _Lady's reading voice_, sounding exquisitely antique and dramatic. "'_And the black ink is like lacquered hair. And the quill? Well, the quill is like that instrument of pleasure whose purpose is never in doubt but whose surprising efficiency one always, always forgets._'"

Ryuho arched an eyebrow. "I don't think I particularly smell like paper."

"You're not _new_," she said with a laugh, looking at him over her shoulder. He kissed in between her shoulder blades, and she didn't smell like fresh paper either; she smelled of soap and water and sweet hay. "Your turn."

He reached around her and read over her shoulder. There was something decidedly nice about laying like this with her, intertwined and propped up, reading old books and listening to her laugh. His mother had been fond of the lists of Sei Shonagon. He continued flipping through the onion skin-thin pages, looking for bits he remembered from childhood.

"Hm. How about …_ 'One's attachment to a man depends largely on the elegance of his leave-taking._' " Well, he certainly wouldn't have gotten far with the good Lady Sei. "'_When he jumps out of bed, scurries about the room, tightly fastens his trouser-sash, rolls up the sleeves of his Court cloak, over-robe or hunting costume, stuffs his belongings into the breast of his robe and then briskly secures the outer sash - one really begins to hate him_.'"

"Well, you can be quite elegant in the mornings, though I'm sure the Lady would have hard sharp words for other parting moments."

"Are you implying you like my leave-taking in the mornings?"

"No, though it is fascinating to watch you get ready. You are astonishingly neat and precise," she said with a stifled laugh. "And I can't really imagine you scurrying anywhere." She paused and flipped through more pages. "Ah ha! '_Things that are elegant_: _A white coat worn over a violet waistcoat. Duck Eggs. Shaved Ice mixed with liana syrup and put in a new silver bowl. A rosary of rock crystal. Snow on wistaria or plum blossoms. A pretty child eating strawberries._'"

"What's elegant about duck eggs?" A faint memory floated up, and it occurred to him that he had asked his mother the same thing decades before. But he couldn't recall her answer, just the sound of her laugh. The question made Mimori laugh, too.

"I don't know. The shape? The color? The way they look in the nest? You have to admit snow on plum blossoms is pretty, though." She paused again. "I guess it doesn't really snow here, does it. But I remember at home, it was always nice to wake up in the morning after snow and ice and look at the garden." She closed the book with a weighty _thump_ and rolled over, stretching.

She had only gotten prettier as she aged, though she was leaner, more angular. She ruffled his hair as he rested his lips on her stomach, his hand feeling the dips and curves from her waist to her thigh, the soft fuzz and the smooth flesh, the goose bumps that sprung up in the wake of his hand.

"So … I think I'm going to go home for a bit, some time soon."

He worked his way up her body with his lips: stomach, ribcage, nipples, collarbone, neck. That delicious spot where neck met jaw, right behind the ear lobe. Chin, cheek, nose, lips. And then he looked at her, she of the uncertain smile.

"As long as you come back."

She smiled again, not uncertain this time. "Of course. Wouldn't do to stay away for too long."

He hated to let her go, since he liked waking up to her more than he'd admit to anyone, even her. But he couldn't help but think a break would be good for her – he doubted even being folded back into her childhood life would stop her from coming home. She rolled over on her side, slid a leg over his hip and wiggled close to him.

He'd never understood the men like Tachibana, the ones who mooned about over women and wrote poetry praising their bodies and virtues. In the years between HOLY and a return to normalcy, there had been several more or less anonymous entanglements – lovely women, soft and charming. The type who would envelope you for an evening or three, the ones who giggled breathlessly and gave coquettish glances over cups of homemade wine. There was nothing particularly inspiring about their smooth curves and arched brows.

But he sometimes thought if he were the literary sort, he could've composed a whole set of poems praising her virtues and body, from her hair to the arches of her feet. He could wait patiently for a girl – woman – like her. As long as she didn't go away forever – as long as she came back for them – that was all that mattered. As long as she came back for him. 

* * *

_You do not have to be good.    
You do not have to walk on your knees  
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.  
You only have to let the soft animal of your body  
Love what it loves.  
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.  
Meanwhile the world goes on.  
_

Mary Oliver, "Wild Geese"


	9. The Year of the Snake

A/N: My god, another update, not even a month after my last one! My beta has returned and so has my inspiration. I'm reasonably pleased with the way this chapter turned out, though there are parts where it seems a little jumbled – that was somewhat intentional, and I've tried to smooth it out without losing too much of what I was trying to convey. I keep worrying about some things perhaps being OOC, but at this point, the story is a decade after the end of the series – so I think some changes are warranted (and acceptable). Hopefully all you wonderfully patient and faithful readers enjoy it.

_**The Year of the Snake**_

_I/hai_. _The twelfth Earthly Branch. Tenth Lunar Month. Ruling hours: 9 to 11 pm._

_It turned; it drew away;   
Its shadow bent in half;  
It quickened and was gone.  
_

_I felt my slow blood warm.   
I long to be that thing.  
The pure, sensuous form.  
_

_And I may be, some time._

Theodore Roethke, "Snake"

* * *

The car had started smoking.

It was bad enough that they'd had to put Mimori on a plane, with assurances that she'd be back in '_Two weeks, I promise'_ – Ryuho was on edge, apparently waiting for a phone call announcing she'd expired in transit, Cougar already missed his reading partner, and he suspected they were both worried about Mimori's first visit to the Mainland in over a decade. And now, with their conveyance sending off billowing waves of acrid smoke, there had been no choice but to pull over; the temperature gauge was alarmingly high, explaining at least part of why Tachibana's old car was so unhappy.

"It's nearly freezing, how can the damn thing _overheat_?" Cougar had been ready to throttle Tachibana, if only he had been there. He'd been tempted to kick the car, but thought about his aching joints and decided meeting metal was probably the last thing they needed, especially without Mimori around to patch things up if he broke his foot. Ryuho had merely rubbed his forehead and sighed. 

"I knew we should've taken Mimori's car, at least she bothers to change the oil on occasion." 

"Well, _Ryu-san_, I'm _so_ glad you pushed the issue."

"Well, Straight, perhaps if you hadn't insisted on the _scenic_ route, we wouldn't be in this position. That was quite a climb for the car."

Cougar had glared. Of course Ryuho wouldn't understand. The man had the sentimentality of a rock.

"I just wanted to -" He'd broken off, sensing the futility of trying to explain himself. It had been a sentimental whim and – clearly, based on the car that looked like it might catch fire any moment – a stupid idea. "You know, it doesn't really matter. We're stuck here until the sun rises anyways; I can't see a damn thing and the car is _still_ smoking."

Thus, with the car smoking and no way to get home other than walking, which Cougar had flatly refused to do, they had settled in for a long and cold evening. Cougar felt quite plucky for remembering his flask, filled with homemade peach liquor. _It may cause a false warmth_, he thought to himself, _but better than nothing at all_. Unfortunately, his flask wasn't made for two and it wasn't long before they were taking small swigs off a bottle of indeterminate origins they had discovered in the trunk. Cougar mused that if he'd only been younger, he could've drank enough to get past the point of caring about the taste ….

They sat near the edge of the precipice, looking down at the scattered lights of the valley – how many years had they spent there? 

"I brought her up here once, you know," Cougar said, handing the bottle of who-knows-what to Ryuho. "Right after she got here. Scared the shit out of her, too. Felt bad about that for a _long_ time."

"Brought her up here to do what?" Ryuho sniffed at the bottle. "God, Cougar, what _is_ this stuff?"

"Hell, I don't know ... on both counts, though I think it's some sort of rice spirits. Very poorly _made_ rice spirits. On Mimori, I didn't do anything untoward, if that's what you're asking. She wanted to see an alter fight, I think." Cougar leaned back, thinking of how young she'd seemed, yet so very grown up. "I mean, in retrospect, I should've taken her for a sedate drive around and been done with it. Maybe I could've at least caressed her thigh comfortingly."

Ryuho made a gagging noise, and Cougar walloped him on his back a few times for good measure. 

Cougar wasn't sure why he was telling Ryuho this. 

"They did drool over her at HOLY, didn't they?"

"You were too disinterested to notice, but she should've been carrying a mop at all times."

"I wasn't disinterested." Ryuho had a peculiar look on his face as he stared at the land spreading below the precipice. He turned his head slightly and gave Cougar a sidelong glance. "Quite to the contrary. I was always watching. I just…" He took another sip of liquor gingerly. "It seemed like the best thing for all of us at the time."

Cougar pondered this. Maybe Ryuho had done the right thing in principle, but implemented it in the absolute worst way possible. Certainly, personal relationships would've been more complex, and upsetting the delicate balance of co-workers in stressful situations was never a good idea – on the other hand, there really was no excuse … no excuse.

But then, they'd been children, most of them, or barely stepping into adulthood. _He_ had been the oldest of the bunch, 21 – the same age as most people were bumbling around after graduating college or still _in_ college or working soul-sucking jobs for poor wages. Their jobs had been soul sucking, for sure, but for other reasons. Perhaps that was the problem and always had been, maturity had been conveyed and accepted before any of them were ready for it.

"I don't know what would have happened if I'd behaved in a manner that everyone _thinks_ I should have, Straight, but I don't think any of it would have come to a good end."

Cougar looked at his face carefully. _Ah, yes, the tell tale flush of alcohol. Perhaps this won't be such a boring evening after all_. He pulled himself up to a sitting position, wondering if the Ice Cube himself would actually spill on – well, _something_ – tonight.

"I don't know, Ryu. Surely you could've handled it better than you did."

"Why?" Ryuho snapped. "So there would've been yet another weak spot for someone to exploit?" 

"A little sensitivity never hurt anyone."

"That's demonstrably false and you know it. I wanted her to go home so she wouldn't be harmed or ... worse," he said stiffly.

"And indeed, our dear Kiryu-sama still walks the earth today. I guess your plan did – oh, oh _wait_, that's right, she _didn't_ go home."

Cougar _almost_ felt bad for needling Ryuho. _Almost_. But not quite. He supposed the alcohol was going to his head, too – this was rather out of character, even if he did have an impressive amount of built up anger towards Ryuho for all those years he'd made Mimori absolutely miserable. While he was busy wandering around in a selfish, self-flagellating haze with some half-baked ideas about what he _should_ be doing with his second chance at life, the rest of them had been … had been …. And then he had the absolute gall to wander back in without so much as a warning! Cougar wished sometimes that Kazuma had just put the Master of Zetsuei out of his self-induced misery so the rest of them didn't have to deal with the bumbling wet blanket Ryuho was half the time - even now - and maybe Mimori would have -

"I loved her enough that I didn't want to put her in danger. I fail to see how that's a dishonorable thing."

"I think, Ryuho," Cougar sighed, settling back on his elbows. "That's your problem. _One _of your problems. It's nice to toss around words like _honor_ and _dishonor_ and _duty_, but really, what does it all mean? I mean, I daresay you're a good bit happier now when no one worries about _duty_ and the _honorable_ thing, beyond not ripping off little old ladies who just want a nice bench for their porch."

"The point then, as I'm sure you remember, wasn't to be happy, it was to do our damn jobs."

Ryuho went silent, a sullen look on his face. Cougar sighed, taking another sip of rice … something, which was at least losing its repugnant taste with each tentative sip. Perhaps his taste buds were being burned away; it seemed a plausible enough explanation. Cougar looked up at the stars – Mimori's stars, he was _sure_ she'd come back just for the stargazing opportunities at night, never mind other reasons – then looked over at Ryuho, who was still gazing sullenly at some point off in the distance. Cougar felt a sudden need to fill the silence.

"What was our dear Kiryu-sama like before she was Kiryu-sama?"

Ryuho gave him a sidelong glance. "You knew her better than I did after she got back."

"I meant when she was a kid."

Ryuho's expression softened a little. "Mm … she was like …." He, too, leaned back on his elbows and looked up at the sky. "Like your Kiryu-sama, but shorter and rounder. And she laughed more. I think sometimes it's my fault for taking that out of her."

"Oh, I don't know, she wasn't exactly bubbly at 18. Seems like she grew up a lot in those six years, that'll take the amusement out of life for anyone. She laughs more now than when I first got here," Cougar said, thinking back on the pale slip of a woman who tearfully flung herself at him when he arrived. "It took Tachibana and I ruining her birthday cake to make her laugh until her ribs hurt."

"She was just different. I'd never met anyone like her before, no one even close."

"She's still different. Loveliest woman that walks this earth on a number of levels, and I've had the great fortune to be acquainted with a number of lovely women."

A pause.

"Why – why _didn't_ you go after her, Cougar?"

Cougar considered the question, out of the blue as it was.

"Well," he started slowly, trying to think of the best way to phrase a response he'd given many times before, though always to interested third parties and not one of the key players. "There wasn't much point. I mean, I came back to make sure she was happy as she could be. That … wouldn't have made her happy, I don't think, not in the long run. Reading poetry and philosophy, on the other hand, _did_ make her happy. Does make her happy. She just needed someone to exist solely for her benefit, since she never worries about herself, even now." He shrugged. "Everyone but her knew you'd stumble back in someday. Wasn't much point in going after a girl who was going to wait until she was old and grey for someone who was going to come wandering back in, for fear of some other, even more unknown future."

Ryuho was quiet, apparently considering this answer.

"The past doesn't matter. Despite it all, she's happy now, Ryu. That's all I ever wanted. That's all I'll ever want." 

* * *

The last time she had felt this much anxiety and anticipation was when her plane had touched down on the Lost Ground; she couldn't even bring herself to look out the window of the little plane as they descended through the clouds, afraid of what she'd see. So it was with no small amount of hesitation that she gathered her bags, pausing to rifle through her purse and find her new little passport, stamped with_ Special Administrative District_ in scarlet letters. Her parents' names were listed as 'sponsors' and several signatures in the booklet signaled the approval of her application for entrance to the Mainland.

She felt a sudden wave of uncharacteristic shyness and unease as she followed the signs to the immigration counters. There were so many people – surely they realized she was one of _those_ people. She tucked her hands into the sleeves of her coat, hoping to hide the chapped skin of her knuckles. _Surely they notice_. The narrow food shops held all sorts of treats she hadn't seen in _years_ – it was all she could do not to press her nose up against the cases full of lovely pastries and plasticine representations of the delights the kitchens could whip up on a moment's notice. The beef noodle soups, however, were nowhere near as tempting as Kanami's.

The immigration hall was large and thronging with people. It was odd to be standing in one of the lines marked _All Others_, along with the masses of tourists and business travelers. The line slowly snaked forward, and despite being the first person coming from the Lost Ground in years, she merely had her curious passport stamped with no more than an interested look from the young clerk.

It was bitterly cold outside, and Mimori looked from face to face as she turned the collar of her heavy wool coat up against the wind. She paced back and forth as minutes ticked by. Ten minutes. Fifteen. Twenty. Half an hour. Surely someone would be here for her, but as she scanned the crowd, there was no name placard with _her_ name, no familiar face waiting. She could feel panic starting to rise again – surely her parents knew when to expect her, had jotted the arrival time in their immaculately ordered planners. Surely they'd send _someone_ for her and not just leave her at the airport. They couldn't have forgotten. 

She was watching the happy reunions of lovers and friends and families forlornly when a little gloved hand was suddenly on her arm. 

"I'm sorry darling, traffic was miserable. You know I've never been good at being on time."

She nearly cried with relief at the sound of her mother's voice, absolutely unmistakable though it had been years since she'd last heard it. She was enveloped in a hug before she could even take a good look at her face, happy just to smell the familiar scent of her perfume. 

"Oh, Mama, I thought no one was coming." _I will not cry, I will not cry_.

Her mother laughed, patting her back. "As if I would leave you standing at the airport alone all night! Here, let me look at you."

She was as beautiful and elegant as Mimori remembered, and she could only smile as her mother patted her cheek and held on to her upper arm with a death grip.

"My Mimori, still as beautiful as ever. The bangs suit you." She looped an arm through Mimori's, steering her towards a black sedan. "Since you can't stay long, I'm refusing to relinquish you to the outside – but if you're hungry tonight, I'm sure Takashi could be convinced to whip something up." Mimori could feel the tears pricking at the back of her eyes as her mother squeezed her arm affectionately.

"Maybe some chocolate pudding and a tart?" she said weakly, glad that she could sink into the comfortable seat of the car, afraid her knees were going to give out.

Her mother laughed as the car purred to life – _Oh, what Cougar wouldn't do for an engine like this_. "Haven't given up your secret love of sweets yet? I predicted that one."

Mimori could only shake her head. She watched as the bright lights of the terminal faded into muted darkness, punctuated by the pale yellow glow of occasional street lamps. 

"My baby. We've missed you." Her mother, she suspected, was speaking as much to herself as she was to Mimori, and Mimori couldn't help but smile – still the queen of massive understatement.

It was good to be home. 

* * *

Cammy could feel panic rising in her stomach – she _knew_ Yutaka was simply being fussy and was not ready to sleep, though the more he squalled and resisted, the more tired he got, the crankier he got, and the louder his squeals of displeasure became – but she wished Mimori was here to give him a quick once over and reassure her that everything was fine.

There were nice things about having a doctor close at hand; Mimori also had a talent for singing lullabies that really _did_ put children right to sleep. '_My mother is a master at this sort of thing_,' Mimori had laughed (quietly, _oh_ so quietly) one night after soothing the littlest Tachibana to sleep. '_Maybe it rubbed off on me_.'

Cammy didn't have a voice for singing, but Asuka always said it was less about melodiousness and more about the feeling behind it. Maybe her husband was right – _his_ voice was certainly nothing to write home about, but even his off-key pop songs from their childhood could usually sooth the baby.

_But what if something _is _wrong_?

"You could always call Mimori."

Cammy startled a bit, and Yutaka let out an unhappy cry. 

"But Kanami, what can she do from the Mainland? And don't you think her parents would be angry?"

"I think her mother is just happy to have her home and wouldn't particularly care if we called five times a day. Here, should I give it a try?"

Yutaka stretched back and yowled as Cammy adjusted him on her lap. Cammy bit her lip, trying to quell the frustration.

"Oh Kanami, you shouldn't _have_ to try. I'm his _mother_, why won't he calm down for me?"

"Cammy, if you weren't so worried he probably would settle down. Let me hold him for a while and _you_ can calm down a little bit."

Kanami sat down next to her and they settled the baby in her lap. It occurred to Cammy sometimes how _grown up_ Kanami was now – they'd just celebrated her eighteenth birthday, and she was a far sight from the little eight year old Cammy had first met. She'd grown into a rather striking beauty, and was not quite as soft spoken as she had been. She was still the only one who could reliably handle Kazuma, though Mimori was a close second; however, while Mimori always had to scold and practically box his ears, Kanami could just give him a _look_ with those green eyes and he'd behave. _Maybe that's why she's so good with infants and children_, Cammy thought with a smile,_she's had years of experience dealing with a very _large_ child_.

"Hm, how does it go?" the younger girl murmured to herself. "Mimori always says it ought to be sung in a minor key, but sometimes she doesn't feel like it."

The baby had stopped fussing quite so much, and was watching Kanami intently, his little chubby hands curled on his chest.

Kanami took a deep breath. "_Sleep, sleep, little one sleep_ - _you're a good little boy, now go to sleep_." Cammy watched anxiously – who knew that babies falling asleep could be a nail-biting experience? 

"_Little boy, where's your nursemaid gone? Across that mountain, back to her home._"

Kanami continued rocking Yutaka until his eyelids began to droop.

'He really does have the loveliest eyelashes Cammy,' Kanami whispered. 

'I think they're from Asuka, no one in my family has such pretty long lashes.'

They sat in companionable silence for a while, only the occasional content gurgle from the baby breaking it. There was a certain amount of anticipation while they watched Yutaka, waiting for his eyes to close totally and those little feet to stop kicking out every now and again.

"I think he's asleep."

Slowly – slowly – they got up, Yutaka snuggled in Kanami's arms. 

"Here, I'll take him." 

He didn't wake up, and Cammy looked down at her son as she settled him in his crib. She loved every bit of him, from his wee little toes and fingers to his nose and those perfect, perfect eyelashes. If there had ever been a more perfect child, _she_ had never seen one. Mimori always smiled when she said that, and Cammy knew that _every_ mother said that – but Mimori would understand one day. 

She said a silent thanks to whoever it was that watched over babies who did not want to sleep that Yutaka was tucked in for the night – _hopefully_ for the night – and peacefully sleeping. The front door flew open.

"Cammy! Have you seen -" "_SHHHHHHhhhhhhh_!"

"Oh, oh my, I'm sorry, I thought - " Asuka looked quite sheepish and dropped his voice to a low whisper. "Are Cougar and Ryuho back yet?"

Cammy shook her head and pointed to the porch, afraid they'd wake the baby. Freezing for a few minutes was a nicer prospect than having to sooth Yutaka back to sleep.

The cold was bracing and it was … starting to snow? The ground had a light dusting of white already, but it looked like more was falling.

"They should've been back by now," Asuka said nervously. 

"Maybe the car broke down," Cammy offered, since Cougar wasn't known for being particularly easy on vehicles.

"Oh, don't say such a thing. They called earlier but I missed it, and now I can't get through."

Kanami stepped out into the snow, looking up in a bit of wonder. "Asuka-san, I wouldn't worry too much. I'm sure they're fine."

"I'm not worried about _them_, I'm worried about my _car_." Asuka paused, apparently reflecting on how that sounded. "I mean, my car and what if something happened to Mimori? Surely they would have_ called_, wouldn't they? But those two are nearly as unreliable as Kazuma is, and -"

Cammy rubbed her temples. She loved her husband – really, she did, he was a wonderful man – but sometimes …. 

* * *

There was something surreal about having her daughter – her daughter, her only child that Nagiko Kiryu had long ago given up to a strange land and unknown people – sitting on the floor in front of her while Nagiko brushed out her hair. _It's as if she's eight again, not twenty-eight_.

"I don't know, Mama, the house is nice if a bit odd." _Odd_ was the understatement of the century, this little hodge-podge complex connected by low, glass-paned halls. Nagiko had no idea what sort of architect had the brilliant idea of combining some sort of nouveau interpretation of traditional houses and plain foreign architecture to an appalling mixed effect, but it was apparently someone after her husband's own heart. At least the gardens were nice, and it had plenty of land – her one consolation.

"Well," she replied, "if your father had his way, we would've moved into something without central heating. I absolutely put my foot down to that – so we compromised. He got his little antique wing, and I got something a little more comfortable."

Nagiko swallowed hard. Losing one's husband to grief was hard enough, never mind when it came on the heels of losing one's daughter.

"I don't understand, what does Daddy _do_ these days?"

"Writes bad poetry, gardens, sits in the hot spring, reads bad philosophy texts. He fancies himself an erudite hermit of the old stripe, as if we were living in the sixteenth century. It wouldn't be _so_ bad if he at least had good taste in his old literature, but he insists on dredging up these god-awful authors that have been ignored for centuries for a _reason_. The corporations hum along without his input, and I can usually take care of anything that would require him."

She sighed and started dividing Mimori's hair into sections. She'd taken to frequenting the good antique booksellers and picking up lovely old books in an attempt to at least divert his energies into better literature. '_Takuya-san, look what I brought you home today! A lovely Meiji edition of Rihaku to add to your collection_. _Let's read some of his poetry tonight instead of your latest composition, shall we?_'

"Your hair really has gotten long, my little sparrow. You almost look like one of those old woodblocks. Maybe you'll inspire your father to start imitating the good stuff and do a portrait of you."

"I've thought about chopping it all of, but I can't quite bring myself to do it. Besides, I just have to pin it up the morning and don't have to fuss with anything else for the rest of the day … and I'm not sure I can see Daddy painting a stick, much less me." She made a little noise of happiness. "I'd forgotten how much I love chocolate. It's so rare at home."

Mimori, just as she had said, had asked for chocolate pudding and a small tart of the French style. Takashi the chef had cheerfully spent the afternoon crafting little elegant fruit tarts, anticipating the request; he seemed to be as excited as the rest of the household that Miss Mimori was returning for a visit. _And_, she mused, _he's probably getting tired of making food fit only for an ascetic_. _Heaven knows the rest of us are tired of eating it several times a week_.

"I just remember how he used to make you bowls of the stuff and you'd slip down to the kitchen in the wee hours to snack. You always thought you were being so sneaky about it." She couldn't help but smile, remembering her daughter – clearly brilliant even at such a young age, but not immune from sneaking snacks at two AM.

It was good to hear her voice again, lower than it had been at eighteen, but still soft and rich – she had so many questions for Mimori beyond the basic sketches of her life for the past ten years. How in the world could two weeks or three be sufficient to hear of it all? 

"Something wrong Mama? You're awfully quiet."

"Nothing, darling." Her fingers were moving quickly, plaiting and weaving – whatever sort of water they had on the Lost Ground, it was apparently marvelous for hair. "Just thinking. There's so much I want to know, I can't even think of where to begin."

"I suppose a ten year gap will do that, won't it." _Yes, my dear, it most certainly will. Would I have ever let you go if I'd known?_

"There, all done."

Mimori touched the elaborate knot that was worked at the nape of her neck as she got up to sit on the couch. "How in the world do you manage to do such things?" she asked with a little wonder. "I'm lucky if I can manage to make it reasonably tidy."

"Miyoko and I used to spend hours doing each other's hair when there was nothing else to do. We got bored of pigtails quickly enough and started going through history books to find inspiration."

"How's Auntie doing these days?"

"Oh, you know your Auntie Miyoko – still breaking hearts and taking no prisoners. She did stop scandalizing Tokyo society after a few years – I think the scandal was so constant it just got to be old hat - and that bumbling husband of hers is too busy chasing around after handsome young -" Nagiko looked at her daughter, who was looking back with a shocked expression. "Darling, surely this can't be news. Our parents weren't exactly talented when it came to matchmaking."

Mimori was looking downright horrified at this point. 

"But – but you and Daddy weren't -"

"No, darling, we weren't, but we were a little more suited to each other to begin with. Your father's parents also had the sense to insist on a match that was more than just a good combination of bank accounts and stock options."

She wondered if Mimori's visit home would pull Takuya Kiryu out of his self-imposed Buddhist slump; it really was starting to border on positively insane. The quick downward spiral of HOLD and subsequent disaster on the Lost Ground had wounded him to the core; and while she had soldiered on in the face of it all, trusting that a mother's intuition would _tell_ her if her beloved daughter was dead, he had simply been weighed down by grief and wracked with guilt.

It had been tempting, she had admitted to herself at times, to simply curl up and stop living when her worst fears were realized; but the Kiyohara clan was made of sterner stuff than the Kiryus. It was no surprise to her that her daughter had clawed her way to happiness from relative misery - she bore the Kiryu name, but was a Kiyohara woman to the core. Just as it should be, Nagiko often thought. She wouldn't have lasted three days at HOLY if she'd had her father's disposition. Her Mimori had _never_ tucked tail and run.

It was good just to hear her voice again, hear her talking of all the things that mattered to her – her friends, her work, her house, Cammy's baby Yutaka – '_What a nice old name, my dear. Too bad the girls here don't have the sense to pick out something so tasteful_. _Promise me if you have children you won't give them stupid yet fashionable names – not that you'd do such a thing._' Cougar's reading list – '_Mama, we need to go to the book seller this week, I know you don't want to leave the house but Cougar would be so happy if I brought him home a crate of books. The general selection is deplorable back home._' The chabos – Mimori had chickens, this tickled her mother to no end, the idea of Mimori running around after ornamental poultry - the pretty chest Ryuho made for her birthday …

"Ryuho makes _furniture_?"

"Oh, it sort of flowed from doing carpentry work when he first came back. Ever tried to find jobs that are both useful _and_ mildly appropriate for people who've spent their whole life fighting, more or less?" Mimori laughed. "He's got quite a talent for it, for whatever reason, and finds it more interesting than working on houses, we let Kazuma do that …" She trailed off, suddenly looking unsure. 

Nagiko arched an eyebrow. She remembered the polite young boy – _so_ polite as to be frigid, even at eleven – in his neat, well-tailored suit or sensible collared shirt and slacks. Because Mimori was exceedingly enthusiastic about him, Nagiko had taken to him right away, despite his stiff and overly formal nature. Mimori had always had such a hard time making friends, even on the Mainland. _ 'Children are so cruel_,' she'd told Takuya after an awful incident involving mud puddles and a pack of obnoxious brats when Mimori had been about six. '_They hate different things so … and they can just tell she's _different.'

The Ryu boy hadn't cared, though, or Mimori had been so overwhelming in her campaign to win him over that he hadn't noticed. That was what Nagiko thought before she'd realized the boy was different, too, perhaps even more unusual than her daughter. '_Birds of a feather and all that_,' his mother had said with a smile. '_It's so good to see him with a friend his age_.' Mimori's campaign _had_ been awfully effective, though, even if birds of a peculiar feather did flock together; it hadn't taken long before he watched her every move with adoring eyes as they read books and had picnics and generally behaved as children. Alarmingly unusual children in many ways, but children nonetheless.

"Well," she responded thoughtfully, musing on the past. Two heirs to vast fortunes making rather common livings; perhaps there was something to be said for that. Look how far their exceptional and privileged upbringings had gotten them – maybe wood shavings and suturing cows made up for some of that rigid formality of their childhoods and the whole mess that came after. "His mother did always have spectacular taste, so subdued and elegant. I suppose that might explain some of it. You probably don't remember, but their house was just wonderful to wander through. She had so many things that I was just mad for … I wonder what happened to it all?"

Mimori made some non-descript noise. "He's actually supposed to be getting that all worked out soon. Apparently his father shipped half the house off after his mother died and squirreled away a lot of money in Switzerland or something. I'm not sure where the trustees have been hiding all these years, or what they've been doing with the money, but they popped up a few months ago." _Well, Ryu Tairen was always a shrewd businessman if nothing else, of course he would've gotten everything out while the going was good_. _ Maybe he had some inkling of what was coming …. _ At the time, his death had been a shocking capstone to an awful few months; little did they know things were going to go from bad to worse. 

"She gave me the prettiest little antique when we left, a writing chest with white brass trim. All in all, it looks quite modern – your father requisitioned it for his study, though. Naturally. 'But Nagiko, it's perfect and _so_ scholarly.' As if trappings make the man."

"Mama, you don't sound very happy with Daddy. I mean, not that I can blame you from the sounds of it, but couldn't you try -"

She cut Mimori off. "My darling, I _have_ tried. I've _been_ trying. I gave up at the point where he said he'd rather stay at home and play in his rock garden than come with me to Tokyo and speak to the politicians about the status of the Lost Ground." Oh, she was furious just _thinking_ about it. She'd really lost her temper – a very rare state for Nagiko Kiryu, since her temper was so bad, she made sure to never lose it – and broken some of their good china hurling it at his shaved head. More precisely, hurling it_above_ his head: she'd just wanted to frighten him into action, not kill him. 

'_Nagiko, that was a wedding present from my –'_ '_God _damn_ it Takuya, we can buy more. We cannot _purchase_ another daughter_.' _'Darling, I think you just need to come around and face the fact that our Mimori is-' 'Is _what? _Dead? You insufferable idiot, I'd know if my daughter was _dead. _And perhaps if you'd snap out of this idiotic fantasy, we'd be able to _do_ something and see to it that we could at least call her on the fucking phone_.'

Takuya had looked at her with wide eyes – she never swore. Never. Never, ever, ever; even at the not so tender age of 49, she had paused for a few terrible moments and waited for a nanny to leap out from behind one of Takuya's beloved antique screens, clutching soap and ready to rinse out her foul mouth. She couldn't even explain what had come over her, beyond raw grief, intense anger, and absolute fury that her husband was refusing to do anything more than putter in gardens and compose bad poetry in pale imitation of the originals. 

She had pulled herself together just as quickly as she'd lost her head, apologized profusely – Takuya had been in mute shock, having seen his wife of 29 years fly off the handle only once before - kissed her husband on the top of his head, got in the car, and drove to Tokyo to deal with the politicians. And now her daughter was sitting next to her after over a _decade_ – alive and well, quite beautiful, still as brilliant and witty as ever. If she hadn't been so beside herself with happiness, she'd feel downright smug. Besides, she'd always hated that hideous china. 

Mimori looked like she was ready to cry. Nagiko could see what she was thinking – _This is all _my_ fault, if only I'd stayed, if only I hadn't left_. Concealing her feelings from her mother had never been one of Mimori's great talents. 

"Oh darling, don't look that way. Your father will snap out of it, I know he will. It's just taking longer than I expected." She reached over to take Mimori's hand. "It's not your fault, Mimori … Oh honey, don't cry. Please don't cry." 

* * *

Cougar was napping, leaned up against a tree and burrowed into his coat. Ryuho sprawled out near the precipice, and it occurred to him that it had been quite a long time since he'd been out under the stars like this, tired and cold.

He was thinking of the way her skin felt against his lips in the morning, the pleasant mix of cool and warm skin, depending on how many covers she'd tossed off while sleeping. He tried to be careful about not bothering her while she was sleeping – he'd nearly fallen out of bed in shock the first (and only) time she had given him a resounding _whack_ across the face while still mostly asleep. She'd blushed furiously when he'd mentioned it, not remembering doing it, but he'd been careful about trying to wake her up ever since. 

He wondered how she was doing, how her parents were doing. She'd looked panicked as they walked her to the tiny little puddle jumper of a plane – he had four perfect crescent shaped cuts in his palm from where she had gripped his hand a little _too_ tightly. 

'_What if they're ashamed of me?_' she'd whispered the night before. 

'_Wouldn't they have just left you to molder away with us if they were ashamed of you?_' he responded, thinking that her mother would probably be beside herself with delight even if her daughter _did_ patch up farm animals alongside patching up people …. She'd looked unconvinced.

Cougar had said she was happy now. Was she? It was so hard to tell; Cougar was still her favorite confidante. It didn't bother him, per se. No, he could understand – Cougar, for all his youthful hot headedness, had been the most reliable person in her life for a decade. For all of Ryuho's care in fulfilling professional obligations – always on time, always dependable, _always_ getting the job done – to be effortlessly dependable in his personal life, dependable like Cougar, was a skill that eluded him. Cougar _always_ knew the right thing to say, always knew when to go check on her when she was dealing with a recalcitrant cow or when to leave her alone. 

What did he have to offer? Sweaty entanglements, the odd omelet in the morning if he managed to catch her before she was off to her first appointment, something to snuggle into on cold nights, any sort of furniture request she could dream up. Men _still_ panted after her – Ryuho was pretty sure she'd never had any trouble drumming up bedfellows, though he paled just thinking about someone _else_ in _her_ bed – Kanami made better omelets, a heating pad could be purchased quite reasonably, and the furniture – well, that was one point in his favor, he guessed, but pouring unvoiced feelings into chairs hardly made up for startling inadequacies elsewhere. She did have the prettiest furniture in the Lost Ground, though, if he did say so himself.

Star watching or reading or lazing about on the front porch – Cougar always just_ knew_ what she wanted, what would make her feel better when she was unhappy or not feeling well. It was as if they had some secret, silent language that only they knew; Ryuho puzzled about that, since in theory _he_ was closest to her. Wasn't he? Or wasn't he supposed to be? That was the way it was supposed to work, or so he'd gathered. Cammy didn't need her own Cougar equivalent, did she?

He was mystified as to why she kept him around – and worried frequently that she'd leave, since certainly there were –

His phone chirping at him startled him out of his unpleasant reverie and he sat up. _Must be Tachibana, wondering what the hell we've done with his car_.

"Ryu."

"Ryuho?" Her voice was faint and hard to hear through the static. Still, his heart jumped a little. "I was just calling to say I got here in one piece." The constricting tightness of his chest – what Mimori would term _panic_, no doubt, but he would call 'reasonable and understandable concern' – lessened.

She babbled nervously – "Mama's fine, she's checking on Daddy who's apparently gone on a bit of a Buddhist bender the past few years, I'm not sure what's going on – is everything all right there? There haven't been any problems at home, right? Yutaka isn't sick? I hope Cammy's doing all right, she worries so, I told Kanami that they can call at any time – but you know Cammy, she won't want to bother me, make sure she has this number. Here, copy it down. Do you have something to write with? … Is everything fine? You and Kazuma are staying out of trouble? What about Cougar? He's staying inside, isn't he? Don't let him run around in the cold, it's bad for his arthritis. Or tell Kanami not to let him run around in the cold, he gets a little cranky when you and Kazuma tell him what to do."

He broke in to tell her he and Cougar were marooned, had been marooned for a few hours, with a smoking car, a bottle of the worst liquor he'd ever had the displeasure of sipping on, and memories swirling about between them. He left out the memories part; no need to upset her.

"You … you broke Asuka's car?"

"_I_ had nothing to do with it, _Cougar _decided to push the thing up a too-steep hill so we could admire the view."

She laughed. "Sounds like Cougar." She paused. He could hear a faint voice in the background, light and educated – a bit higher in pitch than Mimori's, but similar. Her mother, of course. There were flashes of childhood burned into his memories, most of the sort to make any man's stomach turn, but the occasional good one bubbled up with the miserable ones. Mimori's mother was shelved with those reminisces of tasty things the cook made only for him, the way his mother's perfume smelled, the way young Mimori laughed when he said something that _he_ didn't think particularly clever, but she apparently did.

He had only the vaguest recollection of her father, a tall and thin man who wasn't inclined to speaking much; her mother remained a much more vivid being in his mind, pretty and soft, but with a certain fierceness that was wrapped and shrouded in her lovely upper-class exterior. She swept into rooms with a commanding presence, though she had been reasonably young, thinking back on it. She'd finished college early, he could hear Mimori explaining, and then gotten married, then Mimori had followed closely after – she would have been 32, 33, something like that when they came to the Lost Ground. Little, elegant, and completely self-assured.

"Ryuho? Ryuho - are you listening?"

"I … was just thinking."

"Oh, well, I'm running up a fortune of a phone bill, I just wanted to call and let you know everything's fine. I'll call again soon."

"Mimori, I -"

"I really have to go," she chirped a bit unnaturally. "Tell Cougar I'll kill him myself if I find out he's been tearing around like a kid."

There was a click, then the jarring sound of a dial tone. He stared at the phone in his hand.

"She likes hearing that you love her, you know," Cougar drawled from inside his coat.

Ryuho turned.

"What?"

"Makes her feel better. You have to _tell_ her things sometimes, even if you think she should just _know_." 

_How does he _know_ all this? Surely working his way through a whole wing of nurses and lab assistants didn't enhance _these_ sorts of skills_. Maybe this was the sort of stuff that people learned while fumbling around in young relationships – those eye-rollingly saccharine romances that had so distracted co-workers at HOLY, much to his great irritation – the sort of thing he had disdainfully brushed off as _ancillary_ and _distracting_. Well, he certainly hadn't been wrong in his young assessment, they _were_ distracting, though sometimes in the most delicious of ways.

Though, he mused, it wasn't as if Mimori showered him with adoring words; oh, she wailed them sometimes when they were wrapped together, at once too close and not close enough, but with the other wordless syllables and nonsensical phrases that slipped past his ear – well, she said _lots_ of things. But she didn't need to say them, he could feel them. They hummed around when she laid her head just so on his shoulder, or sleepily draped her body on his. Just the way she laughed sometimes for him, for something little. Surely she felt the same things?

"My _CAR_!" came a half-plaintive, half-enraged wail. A very angry shock of purple hair was storming up the hillside, and Ryuho could only sigh and put his head in his hands while Cougar roused himself and emerged from his overcoat, a sheepish look on his face. It was going to be a long, _long_ ride home. 

* * *

Nagiko stroked her daughter's hair as Mimori rested her head on her lap; her daughter hadn't done such a thing since she was _very_ little. 

They looked out the window and watched the snow come down in thick flakes, steadily piling up on every available surface in the side garden.

"It never snows at home," Mimori mumbled. "I've missed it."

"Really? Never?" Thinking on it, the winter they had spent there _had_ been mild; but then, mild winters happened everywhere, at least once in a while.

"It flurries, then melts and makes the mud worse. It's awful and ugly." Mimori gave an unladylike yawn. "I can't think of why it wouldn't snow. Cougar blames Ryuho and Kazuma for upsetting the weather, but the old people say it hadn't snowed for ages before that." Another big yawn. "It's been … been so long since I took a class in earth science. I'm sure there's some … reason for it, I just don't know what it is."

"Are you tired? You've had a long day."

Mimori shook her head. 'Don't wanna move.' Her mother smiled – she'd done this in years past, wanting to stay at the parties they used to throw even though she was falling asleep in her party dress.

She'd always been such a little grown up, so sharp with her mind and impossible to treat as anything _but_ an adult (a very _short_ adult, Nagiko admitted). It was nice to have her here, even nicer to have her revert back to an earlier time, if only for a few hours. 

"Mama?"

"Yes, my darling?"

"Was the snow always so pretty here?" _Now she must be teasing me, to sound so young again_.

"Yes, my dear Kiryu-sama, I believe it always was."

_Even the earth needs a fresh start every now and again_. She looked down at her daughter, who was struggling to keep her eyes open and losing. _To say nothing of people_.

* * *

_Because I dream  
Of you every night,  
My lonely days  
Are only dreams.  
_

Kenneth Rexroth, "XV" from _The Love Poems of Marichiko_


	10. The Year of the Horse

Wow, it's been ... a few years. Anyone still out there? Life has been busy & inspiration sorely lacking; however, there's nothing quite like two weeks of constant fireworks at all hours (thanks, Chinese New Year!) to send one searching for a way to while away sleepless hours. So, it seemed appropriate to come back to _another_ New Year or two. If this feels a bit stop-and-go (as it does to me) and not quite on point as far as past characterization (as it also does to me), it's probably because it's been written in fits of stop and go over the past few years.

(Thanks to **Kuu-sama** for a blindingly fast review (I'm glad someone's out there reading and enjoying!) & catching a typo! That's what haste to get something out for the first time in a few years will do ...)

Usual disclaimers of non-ownership still apply.

_**The Year of the Horse**_

_Ne/z__ǐ._ _The first Earthly Branch. Eleventh Lunar Month. Ruling hours: 11 pm to 1 am._

… _Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass._  
_And the eyes of those two Indian ponies_  
_Darken with kindness …._  
_They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other._  
_There is no loneliness like theirs._

James Wright, "A Blessing"

* * *

Mimori shivered as she sat in a bank of fresh straw, exhaustion sunk in every bone of her body. She'd spent most of the day in bed, a rare day off to spend an inordinate amount of time catching up on sleep, only to be called out at five to set a broken arm, then off to deal with a foaling mare who was having problems.

She felt disgusting. Sweaty, covered in straw, horse sweat, her _own_ sweat, and fluids – she had days when she thought she should simply concede defeat and return to the Mainland to a cushy research job that wouldn't involve standing shoulder-deep in a straining, sweaty horse in the dead of winter. Today was one of those days.

"What idiot bred for a foal this early?" she had cried to Tanazaki, the young farmer who owned the big grey mare.

"My father, Kiryu-sama," he'd replied sheepishly.

"It's _December_, for the love of all things – they usually arrive in spring for a reason, you know!"

Everything had ended well, which was something – a healthy, big colt had slithered into her waiting arms after a few minutes of gentle traction, though Mimori had nearly gone down under the weight. _Where's Kazuma when you need him_? But it was a strong foal, already up and tottering around on impossibly long and unsteady legs. Mimori had never found human newborns particularly endearing – scrunched faces, mottled skin, and spidery fingers added up to alien little things as far as she was concerned – but foals and calves and lambs, well, she was still delighted by them. Human infants didn't get bouncy for a few months. The colt was already feeling steadier on his feet, and testing out his little soft hooves. He swished his tail and gave a squeal before collapsing in a heap of limbs, only to shakily get back up once again to give it another try.

"Kiryu-sama, are you all right?" Tanazaki's pleasantly chubby wife leaned over her, a maternal look in her eyes.

"I'm … fine. Just tired." She took a deep breath and heaved herself up onto unsteady feet. "I think we're about done here. Keep them inside tomorrow, and keep the blanket on the foal. They can't regulate body temperature very well for a few days."

Tanazaki's wife nodded. "Yes, of course. We're sorry Kiryu-sama, I know you finally had a day off – but we were just worried …."

"Better to be called early than too late." She hated getting called out of bed on chilly winter nights; she hated getting called out to some miserable emergency she _could have_ done something about if someone had called earlier even more. "Call if there are any problems."

The wind had died down, but the air was still frigid. She wondered if Kazuma had eaten all of Kanami's stew from that evening's dinner; her stomach clenched painfully in hunger. She'd forgotten her coat in her haste to get out of the door and the cold cut straight through her sweater and ratty old pants. The 15-minute walk back was starting to seem like an eternity.

Her foot caught on a root that had grown across the little path, and she went down in a blur of dirty wool, rubber boots, and the last remnants of any grace she could've possessed under the circumstances. She couldn't help crying out as she landed in a heap, skinning her palms and twisting her left ankle painfully.

Mimori sat up after catching her breath, thinking that the house was looking very far away. She pulled off her boot as gently as she could, wincing as she had to maneuver her already tender ankle through a boot neck that suddenly seemed ridiculously narrow. She flopped backwards, face to the sky, deciding on how to proceed.

"What a miserable evening," she said to the silence. No answer, of course. She wondered if anyone would notice that she wasn't home yet. Probably not; she hadn't been gone that long. Of all the nights to stagger out of the house without her phone, she had to pick this one. Naturally. She looked at her ankle, which was throbbing in time to her heartbeat, wondering whether she'd be able to hobble up to the house on her own. _If only the hill weren't so steep_. She could only imagine what sort of picture she cut – dirty, disheveled, and unladylike tears beginning to well up.

It was a cold and clear evening, and the stars were scattered in their winter formation with the barest sliver of a moon still visible. Mimori rolled onto her side, the earth feeling wonderfully cool against a too-hot cheek.

Not the most ideal place to rest, but she'd seen worse. Maybe someone would come to help before she had to heave herself up from the cold earth. Or maybe she'd just lie there all night, the impromptu star watching session to end all star watching sessions. She blinked, trying to sort the stars into their proper formations. Asuka was good at that, pointing out the constellations as they circled the sky.

She could almost hear Cougar, starting his favorite story for little kids: '_Once upon a time, there was a girl who lived among the stars_ ….'

* * *

Kanami picked her way up the gentle slope, deftly avoiding the ruts and muddy patches. The half-finished pavilion – _a place for reflection_, they had called it, but really it was a memorial – rose in front of her, the bare frame of thick beams standing in relief against the sky. It would be beautiful someday, but for now it reminded her of the dead it was raised in honor of. Skeletons, crumbling into darkness.

Kazuma had passed out on a full belly after ranting and raving about the hordes of people traipsing through the town. '_Fucking assholes, staring at us like we're god damned animals in a zoo,_' he'd bellowed over dinner. She'd calmly ladled him another bowl of stew, and his face fell a bit. '_Maybe if they were all like Mimori, it'd be OK.'_

But they weren't like Mimori; they were unattached third parties who simply wanted to experience something out of the ordinary. She knew the curiosity wasn't malicious, especially not wrapped in the stories of 'once upon a time' – the veneer that the participants in the stories weren't actually walking around, going about their daily business while tourists on holiday oohed and aahed at the lovely scenery and quaint lifestyle. The people – tourists, wealthy ones – paid good money for stories and cows and stars and chickens ('_They're_ chabos,' Cammy had pointedly noted to a group of woman admiring the pretty plumage on 'those cute birds' earlier in the day), not broken alter users and the mundane reality of the great heroes – or villains, depending on one's perspective – of the story.

She clambered up to the platform, which had yet to acquire steps. Ryuho was leaned against one of the massive support posts, arms crossed over his chest, an impassive look pasted on his face. He flicked his eyes over as she stood up and brushed sawdust from her knees.

"You felt like you needed company," she said simply. At some point, she'd learned to shut out the thoughts and feelings of random passers by and residents unless she felt like it; it had taken a while, but she no longer had to concentrate on _not_ feeling. It was like cutting out background noise to hear some quiet conversation, she'd explained to Cammy. It just made it easier to concentrate on the important things, like the fact that Kazuma was tossing and turning in a dreamless sleep, Asuka was glad to be coming home after a week away on business, and Ryuho was lurking around in shadows, in need of company.

He made some non-descript noise – if it were Kazuma standing before her, it would've been a half-feral grunt, but Ryuho had managed to maintain some aristocratic sensibilities, and half-feral grunts were rather clearly beneath him in the day-to-day.

"It wasn't supposed to go like this," he said finally, his voice as flat and even as if he were merely commenting on the weather.

"Wasn't it?"

"They were supposed to stay away forever," he said, voice still curiously flat, but gaining a slight edge that belied the raw hurt that he kept so well hidden from most people.

"No one manages to stay away forever, Ryuho-san, not even you."

He sighed, and rubbed his temples. Kanami looked out over the town and the small group of tourists who chattered and laughed as they made their way to the path leading down to the seaside. _So it was all for nothing_. He didn't need to say it – she felt the uncertainty winding around him.

"No, not nothing." Kanami sat down on one of the broad beams making up the handrail of the little pavilion. "Just something different. I think …" She paused and looked up to the ridgepoles that seemed to cut the sky into perfect slices. " … they'd understand."

Ryuho remained motionless, save quirking an eyebrow. "They?"

"Ryuho-san," she started slowly. "If you had given up everything for someone, would you really want them to never really live again?" She felt him falter.

"I … I honestly don't know."

* * *

Cougar sat on the floor of Mimori's study, books spread around him – all sorts of delights, modern and ancient, sent in a large crate by her mother. He was fascinated with the ornately illustrated children's books – '_A nice break from your stodgy list of classics, I guess_,' Mimori had noted with a laugh – and was currently absorbed in an old book whose pages had faded to a golden hue. _Classic Tales From Around the World_. An odd time capsule of some life – he found himself idly brushing crumbs from some cookie older than him off most of the pages, and scratching half-heartedly at the remnants of jam on corners.

While it was hard to envision their Kiryu-sama poring over the pages of a glorified picture book (even twice as difficult to imagine her leaving behind cookie crumbs and jam stains), he liked the idea of handling some little part of the Mimori-that-had-been-once-upon-a-time.

A shriek brought him out of his contemplation. He creakily rose from the floor, his bones protesting at the movement, and peered out the wide window that looked out on the hills below. He couldn't _see_ anything, but he _had_ heard something; though his body had been giving up on him for years, his mind wasn't suffering the vagaries of accelerated aging.

He started down the little path, worn smooth from comings and goings, pulling the collar of his coat up against the chill of the night air. His heart skipped a beat when he saw her lying on her side in the winter grass. "Miss Mino-" he started to call out, and her tired laugh came to him, the correction he so adored and would _never_ tire of hearing. "Mi_m_ori, Cougar."

She struggled up as he hurried towards her, fast as his painful joints would allow. "Oh, Cougar, you shouldn't be out – it's cold, and you really need to be –"

"Ah, my lovely Kiryu-sama, have I ever been one to ignore the cries of a damsel in distress?" That at least garnered a wan smile from her. "What in the world happened?"

"Tripped on my way home from the Tanazaki farm. I just thought I'd lay here and watch the stars for a while, since I was stuck here for a bit anyways." She touched her ankle gingerly and winced.

"Well, it's your lucky evening – I've arrived to rescue you. Shall we return home? You must be half frozen – I think those pants were ready for the trash bin several years ago, my dear."

She hesitated for a moment, eyeing him carefully. "I … think I'd like to stay here and look at the stars a while longer, if you wouldn't mind. And if you promise you're not too cold." _Of course I wouldn't mind; have I ever turned down an opportunity to just feel your presence?_ He didn't say it though; he knew he didn't need to.

So many things passed unsaid between them, and he liked it that way. She and Ryuho had their private game of painfully stiff and formal language, remembered from their childhood, among other things. Cougar wasn't _entirely_ sure he'd trade the game they played – the _knowing what you feel without you having to say a word_ game, which was sometimes painfully serious – for everything Ryu enjoyed. There was something to be said for such a friendship, intimate in its own ways.

He settled next to her, and she leaned against him, murmuring an apology for the stench of sweat (equine and human), and the sharp bits of straw that worked their way from her sweater to his coat. They looked out together at the expanse of dark ocean rolling up to the shore.

"Do you think the stars here will ever _not_ look close?"

He gazed up, the winter belt of the Milky Way winding its way lazily across the black. She continued, apparently not expecting an answer. "I … it's selfish of me, but I hope it never changes. I worry sometimes that all this –" she waved her hand down to a group of Mainlanders making their way to the beach. "I worry that it's just a prelude to something else."

Cougar considered that for a moment; oh, he supposed it _was_ possible that someday the hillside they sat on would be paved over, and a high rise would stand in place of their rambling house, and one _wouldn't_ be able to watch the stars for all the lights at night. It just seemed unlikely. Maybe long after anyone who remembered the past few decades had passed on – maybe then, but the distrust and suspicion ran deep.

"I think sometimes it's all my fault," she said weakly. "And then I think that's giving myself a little too much credit, but Mama can be so … insistent." Cougar smiled to himself, thinking if her mother was half as persistent as she was, it was little wonder the government had acquiesced from their former policy of 'If we pretend the Lost Ground doesn't exist, it simply doesn't.'

"Ah, my Lady Doctor-Veterinarian, no one could blame her for wanting to see you again. Besides, where else can people go to see stars as close as ours?"

"I suppose you're right, Straight Cougar."

"My dear, we'd be a pretty miserable tourist trap without the night sky, wouldn't we? As delightful as Cammy's chabos are, they're hardly the draw that _pureunadulteratedNATURE_ is." He could feel her smile into his arm, and he was glad he hadn't lost that particular skill yet – and hoped he never would. "And for that reason alone, I suspect you'll have your stars for a long time to come."

"Maybe so, Cougar-san." She reached down and started pulling on her rubber boot. "Shall we head back?" His creaky bones moved faster than her tender ankle, and he offered her a hand to help her up.

"Straight Cougar?"

"Kiryu-sama?"

"Would you read to me tonight? It's been a while since we've done that and I think … I think I'd like it."

"But of course. We can relive your childhood, or your mother's – I can never quite tell which book belonged to whom. _Someone_ had a fondness for cookies while reading, is all I can say."

"Yes, yes," she laughed. "That would be me _and_ my mother. We can look at whatever you feel like, as long as there are happy endings. I'm not in the mood for authentic fairytales tonight."

They slowly returned home in comfortable silence, leaning on each other for support. Cougar pondered exactly what it was that made an _authentic_ fairytale – surely they didn't _have_ to have a miserable ending, culminating in limbs being amputated or people getting eaten – or star watching being lost for want of a profit. No, even stories that _ought_ to have a gruesome ending could turn out fine in the end – weren't they all proof of that?

* * *

The house was quiet, save the bubbling of the coffee pot. He was relieved that there wasn't a pack of people over; his head hurt, he was tired, and feeling vaguely unsettled after his conversation with Kanami. Memories and thoughts he usually kept desperately under wraps threatened to overwhelm him. A scalding shower and a swift collapse into bed was all he wanted.

Mimori was seated on the wide windowsill in her study, looking out towards the sea. She smiled sleepily at him, and he thought she cut a very pretty picture – one that belonged on the pages of one of Cougar's antique books. He idly wondered if she had been this pretty in the years they had been apart.

His recollection of Mimori-the-teenager was fuzzy around the edges, clouded by time and years of exhausted idealization of someone he would never see again, exacerbated by a lack of photographs – though that was probably a blessing, the idea of coming face to face with his teenage self made him uncomfortable. He remembered her as rounder, softer around the edges. Others had plumped in intervening years, but her constant schedule of running here and there kept her lean. He'd spent many a happy hour tracing every inch of the Mimori-that-was-now, but occasionally he mourned the loss of a body he'd never really known.

"You're home late." She smiled and held out a hand to him, which he took somewhat gratefully – after a day spent with nothing other than sawdust, planks of wood, and gawking tourists, it was nice to simply touch her.

"Long day. Kanami came up to see me." She just kissed his hand and held it to her cheek in response. "What in the world did you do to your foot?"

She looked down at her bandaged ankle morosely. "Wasn't paying attention walking home and tripped on a root. I think it will be fine with a few days of rest, it's just sort of uncomfortable at the moment. However," she continued, "a side benefit of being a temporary invalid is that Cougar has promised to entertain me tonight with childish fairytales."

He wished he could just stand here and hold her hand forever.

She leaned against the glass. "Do you still wish I'd left when you asked me to?"

"I -" he hesitated, caught off guard by the suddenness of the question. _No point in lying, not like you've ever been any good at hiding the truth from her. _"Yes. Sometimes." He brushed her bangs out of her eyes. "For selfish reasons. You weren't raised for this."

She smiled a little sadly. "Nor were you."

_No, but there wasn't anything left for me._ It went unsaid – he didn't need to say it, it was something they both knew.

"I was the selfish one." Her voice was low and quiet, and it wasn't clear if she was talking for his benefit or her own. "You know, at the time, I thought I was doing something so wonderfully grown up and useful. Can you imagine? I realized at some point it _was_ really selfish of me … all of it. Coming back, staying, still staying, staying longer." She paused to wipe condensation from the windowpane. "Funny, isn't it. I guess at some point it just hurt too much to leave, and I could at least justify being selfish by flinging myself into altruistic things."

He tried to say something, refute her portrayal of herself – 'selfish' was the last way anyone else would describe her – but the words stuck in his throat. He often wished he was like Cougar and could so eloquently voice his feelings and soothe her in her panicky moments, but he wasn't. He could only stand here holding her hand, looking at her with what he was _sure_ was an idiotic expression.

She looked down at his hand and suddenly appeared a little horrified, as if she hadn't realized she was talking to _him_. She laughed too brightly, covering up her misstep. They had once promised to simply live in the now, and not dwell on the past, nor ruminate on the future. "See? There I am, doing it again – you've had a long day and I'm keeping you up rambling about … nonsense. You look exhausted. Why don't you go take a shower and go to bed?" Her suggestion, as always, was solid, but he was loathe to let go of her hand; he wished he could set her at ease with a word, elegantly explain all that she meant to him, everything she embodied, what she meant to _everyone_. But he couldn't, so he held her hand instead.

He finally convinced himself to let go when he heard a door slam and the sound of Cougar's boots on the floor. A painfully hot shower quickly followed by what he hoped would be a dreamless sleep – just as she had suggested – sounded like an excellent idea. As he crawled into a hot curtain of water, he could hear Mimori's genuinely bright laugh and Cougar's deep, mellow _reading aloud voice_. He'd heard Cougar tell stories enough to know precisely how he was beginning, even though only the contours of his voice carried between the walls and over the sound of the shower. '_Now, Kiryu-sama, how do these always start again? Oh yes – _once upon a time ….'

_Once upon a time_. Cammy had said one night – after a little too much wine and in a fit of the teenage romanticism that still caught her from time to time – that Mimori 'is a bit like a fairy tale princess, isn't she? Beautiful and kind and wise and loving and patient_._' He had thought at the time she had another thing, a _once upon a time_, the golden age before everything went to hell. He supposed they all had something like that, but the faded photographs pasted in Mimori's childhood albums testified to a life that really had been fit for a storybook princess.

He sighed and leaned his head against the cool tile of the shower as water that felt like stinging needles beat down on his shoulders. "Once upon a time, before life fell apart bit by bit and then disintegrated all at once in a rush, a life that subsequently went limping along with a veneer of normalcy after kind of recovering from a few years that qualified as hell on earth_._" Hardly the romantic fluff Cammy would delight in. He and Mimori would make a pretty awful fairytale, come to think of it. Almost as gruesome as the old German ones Cougar delighted in scaring the older children with. How would it go? He closed his eyes, trying _not_ to remember the sound of his mother's voice as she read him to sleep.

_Once upon a time, in a land that seemed far away but really wasn't, there lived a princess, and she was beautiful and smart and kind. She traveled to a land that seemed far away (but really wasn't) to see how the people there lived. There she met a boy, and broke his heart (unintentionally), because she had to leave ('_But_,' she had declared with a firmness beyond her years, '_I'll be back, I promise_'). Years later, she did indeed keep her promise, and she was still beautiful and smart and kind. _

_But this time, the boy left, preemptively breaking her heart (on purpose), lest she be able to wield her power again ('_Because_,' he had justified to himself with an iciness beyond his years, '_it is for her own good._'). But the princess waited for him to return - though she didn't have to - for princesses are raised to have a sense of honor and duty, and she was good and faithful and patient (also beyond her years), And the boy come back and she still loved him, which he found difficult to believe, and he often laid next to her while she slept, simply watching, fearing that she would take back her gift of forgiveness and break his heart once again. For in a just world, bad deeds never go unpunished_.

* * *

Mimori stood brushing her hair out in long, even strokes – she did find repetition soothing at times - and peered from behind the heavy curtains that shut out most of the light. The first and only time she had come face to face with a curious tourist staring into her bedroom at 3 AM, she had screamed loud enough to wake most of the town. A bleary-eyed Cougar had managed to restrain Kazuma from committing a capital offense, and Ryuho had simply fumed silently with a murderous look in his eyes. They'd hastily installed curtains after that.

She'd always liked falling asleep in a room half-bathed in moonlight; the Lost Ground was still so blissfully dark at night, and the moon so comparatively bright. _No wonder the tourists like it_, she mused as she watched a couple head down the little path to the sea, a bottle of wine tucked under the woman's arm. The moon was barely a sliver, but the sky was bright with stars. It pained her a little to shut out all that lovely soft light with … curtains. She sighed, and hoped Cougar was right - that little changes like strangers coming through at regular intervals weren't the beginnings of wholesale change. Curtains were bad enough; she didn't know _what_ she'd do if the stars were no longer close.

She turned away from the window and felt her way to bed. The covers were cold and smooth, and she settled herself gratefully against Ryuho (who was _not_ cold in the least, which still surprised her) as he curled around her and slipped his arm around her waist.

She idly stroked his arm, a snippet of a poem Cougar had read to her once coming back to her suddenly. _Not knowing when we will meet again, let's write letters_. Letters – they should've written letters when they'd parted as children. She wondered why she hadn't. Not that it made much difference now, she thought wryly. She thought of asking him if he'd ever considered it, but he was so tired today.

She smiled when he kissed the nape of her neck, sending a little shiver down her spine. "Mimori?"

"Hm?"

"You're not selfish."

"Oh, Ryuho, you don't have to – I mean, I'm sorry for -"

"_Stop_." His hand found hers, which was twisting the cord of her (their?) pendant a little anxiously. She stopped her half-anxious twisting. "Just because I sometimes wish you'd gone back when I asked doesn't mean … doesn't mean I know what I'd do without you," he mumbled into her neck finally.

She couldn't help but smile at that, the closest thing to a declaration of love she was likely to ever get from Ryuho Ryu. Years later, he still jealously guarded his innermost feelings, even when they were obvious to everyone. She supposed they all did, at least a little – she marveled at the visitors who were able to so blithely wander here and there, soaking up the pastoral views without a thought to those who had made it so. Some were scarred physically; those who weren't were frequently scarred emotionally; and all of them seemed to be waiting for the other shoe to drop, as Asuka had once said to her.

As if letting go of the tight rein they kept on their memories could spell disaster. And maybe it would, causing the carefully constructed life they had built up bit by bit, safely shielded from the past, to collapse in a heap of raw anger and grief. Even so, it hurt to feel the wide gulf that separated them sometimes. All the conversations waiting to be had, memories waiting to be released. She and Ryuho lay together some nights and she wanted nothing so badly as to simply shake him and _insist_ he spit it all out – every last terrible, miserable, heartbreaking thought. Instead, she always felt at once wonderfully close and terribly far away from him, as if there was always going to be some unbridgeable chasm between them.

She wondered how it was that fairytales always had neat endings, or at least their modern reincarnations did. What lay beneath them? What did authors leave unsaid? Did the heroes and heroines calmly hash out their trials and travails over a pot of coffee and some cake? Did the lovers patch things up with a week's vacation to some tropical place? Did the Cowherd and Weaver Girl ever spend their solitary annual night together twined around each other but separated by lives lived apart, yet so very interconnected?

She held his hand a little tighter.

_Once upon a time, _she began in her head, silently mimicking Cougar's solemn voice, the one he always started stories with. _Once upon a time there was a girl, and though some called her a princess, she was merely a member of an ancient aristocracy - although if her mother was to be believed, there _were_ some imperial relatives buried in the genetic woodpile somewhere. And when she was young, she met an aloof boy, equally as aristocratic, but twists of fate and geopolitics had shuffled his family to the margins. And, in a burst of youthful naïveté, she resolved to win him over, and she did. For a while. And then …. And then …._

… _and then in after years, people were wont to sigh in admiration for their long-standing love and mention romance and fate, though the 'princess'-cum-doctor-veterinarian wondered if they had any idea of the heartbreak that lurked right below the surface, ever ready to burst forth with renewed vigor_.

_Well_, she thought, that _wouldn't do_. Sleep was washing over her, but she resolved to try again.

_Once upon a time …_

* * *

_What might have been and what has been_  
_Point to one end, which is always present._  
_Footfalls echo in the memory_  
_Down the passage which we did not take_  
_Towards the door we never opened_  
_Into the rose-garden. My words echo_  
_Thus, in your mind._  
_ But to what purpose_  
_Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves_  
_I do not know._  
_ Other echoes_  
_Inhabit the garden. Shall we follow?_

T.S. Eliot, "Burnt Norton," from _Four Quartets_


	11. The Year of the Sheep

Anyone still out there? Apparently I'm just fated to update this at two-year intervals. I picked it back up after months (years) of not even thinking about it, and I realized that I started the story before I even started _applying_ to grad school – I'm now finishing my dissertation and getting ready to start a job next fall as an assistant professor (!).Crazy stuff, but nothing like having to crank out tens of thousands of words on a short deadline to make you want to write _other_ things. I've got most of the remaining chapters (at least in the original cycle as I mapped it out) more or less roughed out, so I do endeavor to update it with a little more frequency. This chapter, and the one previous, were written in such fits and starts it's been hard to just publish them, as I'm not thrilled with the final effects. But on the whole, I suppose it's a small blessing that this is an incredibly slow moving fandom & there are some wonderfully patient, generous readers. Thanks for all the feedback over the years & your patience.

Standard disclaimers apply – own nothing & claim to own nothing, etc.

_**The Year of the Sheep**_

_Ushi/ch__ǒu_. _The second Earthly Branch. Twelfth Lunar Month. Ruling hours: 1 to 3 am._

_And once, on a latefrost morning, he was new._  
_Licked into life by an old blackfaced ewe …._  
_How could they look at a ram's skull and not see_  
_That once that skull would have been small enough_  
_To fit roundly, slick as a cricket ball,_  
_Into the cupped palm of a shepherd's hand._

Ann Drysdale, "The Ram's Skull"

* * *

The evening had started off pleasantly enough. For the first time in decades, longer than anyone in the town could remember, a blanket of snow covered the Lost Ground – and it was falling still. They were tucked in Mimori's study, which despite the large windows was usually the warmest room in the house. Cougar had decided to read through some classic epics in the month while Mimori was gone, a good distraction for the long winter evenings that seemed terribly empty without her. Ryuho had read many as a child, or had them read to him, and evinced little outward interest – but he had to admit Cougar had a knack for storytelling, even if it was telling someone else's stories off a printed page. He'd managed to win Kazuma over with _The Tale of the Heike_. They'd recently moved on to the _Iliad_, which even Kazuma, loutish brute that he was, had to admit was a rather interesting story. Kanami's knitting needles clicked away, always ready with a '_Kazu-kun, hush, you're interrupting Cougar-san_.' Cougar pulled out a battered copy of the _Iliad_, making a show of dusting off the cover.

'Hey old man, more of this one tonight? This old stuff ain't bad after all_,_' Kazuma declared, settling in for more. Ryuho had rolled his eyes, and continued down the list of possessions, scattered all over the region – _send, keep in storage, donate, dispose of _– and bank accounts, noting with growing irritation the amount of money that had been funneled off by the trustees. It wasn't that the totals really mattered. But the _idea_ that his father had put these people in place so as to watch over the family fortune, and then they had siphoned significant portions of it off, presumably thinking _he_ wouldn't live to care about it …. Well, that was the price of _thinking_ you could trust most people, he thought ruefully.

'Now then, where did we leave off yesterday– ah yes, chapter eighteen, somewhere … around … here …' Cougar tapped the page with his index finger, cleared his throat, and was off. Perhaps these old classics would have been more attractive when he was a child if his tutors had read as well as Cougar did now. Instead, he remembered months of dull recitations and formally structured essays on them. Ryuho recalled one of those essays he had sat and dutifully written, the sound of the tutor's voice – '_Now Ryu-kun, as you know, we often call the The Tale of the Heike 'Japan's _Iliad_,' and indeed, there are many similarities. I've prepared these two passages, so please explicate on the similarities beginning from the opening lines ….'_

His mind wandered away from the papers in front of him, musing on tutors and a school boy's books and lessons, then wandered back to the present as Cougar got up to pace the length of the study, back and forth, one hand holding open the little book, the other gesturing grandly. It was a part of the story that had seemed very sad to him even as a child, and more so now that he truly understood the pain of losing comrades that the ancients had sung of. '_A dark cloud of grief fell upon him as he listened … He flung himself down all huge and hugely at full length, and tore his hair with his hands.' _Cougar rumbled on:

'_His mother went up to him as he lay groaning; she laid her hand upon his head and spoke piteously, saying, 'My son, why are you thus weeping? What sorrow has now befallen you? Tell me, hide it not from me ….''_

It caught his attention, and he turned away from the papers – the interminable documents, names and dates and lists and bank accounts, as if his parents – as if _his family_, their _entire life_ together – could be boiled down to a simple inventory. Cougar read on as he walked.

'… _Then said Achilles in his great grief, 'I would die here and now, in that I could not save my comrade ….I too shall lie when I am dead if a like doom awaits me. Till then I will win fame … thus shall they know that he who has held aloof so long will hold aloof no longer. Hold me not back, therefore, in the love you bear me, for you shall not move me.''_

It had felt as though the breath was being squeezed out of him, and Ryuho had hastily excused himself, just wanting space to clear his pounding head. _Breathe_, he told himself, _breathe and think of anything else_.

God, he just wanted her home. He hoped Tachibana would be able to make it back in this weather; the drive wasn't long, but it wasn't as if anyone had been ready for such a storm. Every time Mimori left, he practically counted down the seconds until she would step off the plane or walk through the front door. Dealing with the detritus from his former life was extraordinarily painful, and he'd wished fervently for her reassuring presence during the discussions. Instead, he sat at one end of the kitchen table, the three men in suits sat on the other – and he had been reminded again how _alone_ he often felt.

_Breathe_. He concentrated on nothing but breathing and walking, the feel of breathing and walking. The look of the landscape and the sound of wind and snow. He did this until his heart stopped beating so quickly, and his breathing slowed, and he felt his usual calm returning to him.

He'd been walking up the long hill to the house, unsure of how long he had been out. He hadn't been cold; he was still surprised how … _warm_ thinking of her made him feel, like his heart would still explode for the mere fact that she _loved_ him. Still loved him. He would be glad to sleep next to her and feel her heart beat. He'd missed her. The sullen part of his personality told him to keep a lid on it, but he didn't feel like keeping such a pleasant feeling in check.

The stark color caught his eye first, a long trail – dark scarlet against pristine white. His heart stopped. He saw a little hand, an indent – but that red, that's all he really saw. In retrospect, if he'd stopped and thought a minute, he would've heard Mimori's laugh in response to something Kanami said, that beautiful laugh – he and Cougar loved it so much, it wasn't like bells or something equally as ridiculous, it was just the sound of her happiness and that was enough.

But he didn't, his ears were buzzing like they had so long ago – almost twenty years – when he'd realized his mother was dead. There hadn't been blood then, but he swore there was blood now, and his worst fears were realized. He knew he should've sent her back, _insisted_ she go home and never return, done _anything_ to make sure she didn't stay here with him. He realized with an awful clarity that he never should have come back – never should've returned until she was so heartbroken she had gone home, somewhere safe, somewhere away from _him_. And he hadn't, and now she was –

He was over her and pulling her up before he knew what he was doing, barking and snarling at her as if she was one of his subordinates, as if they were back in battle and she needed to step back in line before she ruined the whole damn operation. 'Get up. I said get _up_. _Now_, dammit.' He was surprised when her body didn't resist, when her body moved with him, when she opened her eyes in shock, her smile faltering. It registered that she was _not_ dead, and was in fact quite warm despite the snow falling and the fact that she'd been lying in it like she was –

_Her scarf_. Just a scarf. Not blood, not anything vital, just a piece of heavy wool. Dark scarlet tinged with brown, the color of old blood. She had stared back at him with wide eyes, wrists held together by a single hand of his, mouth slightly agape.

"Don't _ever_ do that again," he had growled at her, surprised at the fierceness of his own voice. "_Promise me_."

"Ryu- Ryuho?" Her voice had been barely a whisper, and she tugged back against him trying to get her wrists free. "I – promise you what?"

In retrospect, of course she had looked confused, then frightened, then angry – she'd just been enjoying the snow. He'd been searching her face, looking for some sign – of what, he wasn't quite sure, but there had to be _something_. Her brow had been furrowed and she was looking at his hand that gripped her wrists.

"Ryuho, what in the hell has – I – _oof_!" He'd let go the instant he'd realized he was possibly hurting her, right as she had made a furious tug against him, so she went sprawling back into the snow he'd pulled her up from. They'd stared at one another for a few seconds, Mimori sitting with limbs akimbo, Ryuho standing above her still wanting to make sure she wasn't just going to … well, he hadn't known what. Be swallowed up by the snow, he supposed.

"Well, I'm glad to know you're happy to see me, too," she had said crossly, waving his hand away from her while she struggled up from the snow. She'd stumbled and landed in an unceremonious heap at his feet, though she'd snapped a furious "I'm _fine_" at him when he tried to help her up. His mind was reeling, racing – _just like those times before, and now she's gone too -_ and then of course was the awful feeling of knowing he'd scared her half to death.

She finally extricated herself and went inside without a word – though he wasn't even sure what to say, an apology seemed like far too minor a concession.

Ryuho was left to stand and look at the imprint of Mimori's body in the snow. Her arms, her head, her legs – little bits of red fuzz still clung to parts from her scarf. His utter stupidity never failed to amaze him; what did amaze him was that despite spending most of his life being cold, calculating, and perspicacious, emotion still seized him in the most unbearably irrational of ways.

So for the second time on a snowy evening, here he was, walking, not knowing where he was going .The snow was deep enough to slow him considerably, though with every step he could feel the tension leaving him, bit by bit. He didn't know where he was going, and he supposed one benefit of being on an island that there was only so far _to_ go. He just wanted quiet, a place to collect himself. It was a wonder Mimori had put up with him all these years, and he wondered if tonight might not have been the last straw.

He paused, finding himself in a stand of birch that looked more ghostly than usual thanks to the snow. _Quiet_. Only the sound of snow falling. There was a picture in one of Cougar's old books, a collection of black and white photos of famous Mainland sites – it was of the Meiji Temple in the snow. The photo radiated _calm_, its inhabitants frozen in peaceful silence. Ryuho imagined it must have sounded much like this evening on the Lost Ground.

He didn't know what had come over him tonight. _No, that isn't entirely true_, he thought. He had lost control, utterly and absolutely. And over something so preventable! If he had just _looked_, or _listened_, or done anything other than letting the primitive part of his brain spiral out of control. Apparently, years of a comfortable existence had dulled the instincts he'd so sharply honed after his mother's death. _Not death_, he corrected, _murder_. A death, a quiet slippage from this world to something else, would've been tolerable. Or at least more bearable.

He sank down to his knees and looked to the sky.

He always tried so forcibly to turn his mind from the past – all the missteps, all the little tragedies along the way, and especially the big ones. It worked most of the time, but not now, for whatever cursed reason. He wanted answers to the same questions he'd asked many times in the past: _why me, why us, why this. How did it all turn out in this way_. _Why am I like this, why can't I stop?_

Kazuma – god damned Kazuma, constant thorn in his side, even after all this time – echoed in his mind, a painful memory, one of the _most_ painful – _What are you holding back for? The best you could do now is cry for her, she deserves that!_

He realized he was breathing heavily, cycling through memories of the past that were incredibly painful. But maybe – as much as he hated to admit it – maybe Kazuma was right, and not just all those years ago. Shifting between icy coolness and … whatever had happened tonight, irrational outbursts, was clearly not working. And yet, the idea of shedding an icy façade seemed painful in its own way – different, but neither better nor worse.

_What are you holding back for?_

_I don't know. It hurts too badly otherwise._

The snow, to his surprise, felt good against him, the cold not even registering. It was so cold and quiet and calm, so unlike the way he felt inside. He wanted that feeling of icy coolness to return to him.

And so he let himself scream into the darkness, into the snow and wind and cold, until he was hoarse with effort.

* * *

There was a certain pleasure in unpacking the boxes her mother always sent home with her: it was a little view of her mother's mind. What Nagiko Kiryu thought would be useful, the little treats she carefully picked out, the bits and pieces of their former life. The distance that had seemed so insurmountable for years – the Mainland might as well have been the moon – had in one fell swoop gotten very small, but Mimori still treasured these boxes from home.

"This is beautiful," Cammy sighed, running her hand over the fine wool of an overcoat. "Your mother always sends the loveliest things." Mimori smiled, pulling out a few more items.

"Here, I think these are for Yuta-kun … and this is for Asuka. Oh, here's more yarn for Kanami - and I know there's something in her for you …. Although Cammy, you should probably be in bed. I feel terrible for keeping you up."

Cammy laughed. "Don't – it's nice to have a girls' night for once. Besides, they'll probably be in precious short supply after the baby comes." She patted her belly and grinned. 'I do hope Yuta-kun takes to being an older brother well.'

'Well, he certainly has enough aunties and uncles to shower him with attention, that will surely help take away the sting of no longer being an only child.'

There was a bundle with a particularly tight knot, and Mimori reached for the scissors that she kept in a desk drawer. Her hand hit upon something that didn't belong. She turned to look.

A little box she didn't recognize. Tucked inside were a bundle of papers, stamped with a seal that looked vaguely familiar, more papers, a dog's leather collar, stiff with age, jewelry. _Jewelry?_ Bracelets, a necklace, a few rings –

She held up the largest of the rings up to look and realized with a start that it was his mother's. Mimori could remember the look of the large, square emerald on a delicate white hand.

"Cammy?"

"Hm?" She turned away from the mirror where she was holding up pieces of fabric against herself, apparently considering what set her off to best advantage.

"Were the lawyers here while I was gone?"

Cammy bit into her lower lip. Kanami, knitting needles clicking away, answered for her.

"They were, Mimori-san, two of them and a trustee."

Mimori looked back down at the ring and rolled it around in her palm. "I see … I wonder why he didn't tell me."

"Oooh – what is _that_!"

Mimori had to laugh, Cammy had always been a bit of a magpie – she loved pretty things, and Mimori often promised her that someday, they'd all go to the Mainland, and Cammy could shop to her heart's content with Mimori's aunt, who was quite the fashion plate. '_Sounds absolutely heavenly!' _she would say, a dreamy look coming over her.

'Oh, Mimori, it's gorgeous - the color is so deep! It's nearly the color of Ryuho's hair, of all things.'

'It was his mother's,' she replied softly. 'I think it was a present from his father after he was born. It's quite a rare emerald, see?' She held the ring up to the light. 'It's _very_ clear.'

'And to think I just got a pretty bouquet and a locket when Yuta-kun was born,' Cammy laughed. 'Oh Mimori, I know you always say that being rich is its own curse, but I wouldn't mind a present like this once in my life.'

'Maybe someday, Cammy.' She gently placed the ring back into the little box with Zetsui's collar. She hated to think of Ryuho dealing with all of this in her absence, bearing it – as he always did – alone.

'Are you _sure_ you're all right'

'Don't worry about me,' she smiled. 'I don't know, Cammy, I guess I'm used to the occasional display of total irrationality by now. I know he didn't mean it, and in some strange way, it's Ryuho's expression of being very worried."

'I guess, Mimori, you'd just think he would've found some balance by now.' Cammy stood back, looking thoughtful. 'It isn't as if he's the only one who had a pretty lousy childhood.'

'No, no - of course not. I just think sometimes he spent so much time alone, either by necessity or design, that – I don't know how to explain it, but a few years of normalcy isn't enough to overcome all of that. Everyone else at least had _friends_.'

Cammy settled herself back on the couch, where Kanami continued to knit away. 'Well, Lady Doctor-Veterinarian, you're certainly a saint for putting up with it. I honestly don't know how you manage it all - chickens, a baby, and Asuka are sometimes too much for me, I don't know what I'd do if Asuka wasn't well-adjusted.'

'Oh, I don't know, I'm hardly an angel. And I _did_ ask for this – for years, no less. I knew what I was getting into, I think. I sometimes think of what my life would be like if I hadn't come back – I'd probably be married off to someone I wasn't in love with, working at a research unit during the week and draping myself in silks and jewels and attending society functions on weekends.'

A dreamy look came over Cammy, probably imagining herself in those self-same silks and jewels at a fancy party.

Mimori laughed again, and cut open another bundle. 'Here, there may be some more pretty fabric in here, though I'm afraid Mama _probably_ didn't pack rings for your fingers and bells for your toes, as that old rhyme says. We'll have to dig those up elsewhere.'

'Mimori?'

'Hm?' Mimori was biting her tongue as she sometimes did in moments of intense concentration. For being an over-privileged housewife, as her mother often described herself, she certainly knew how to pack a box _and_ tie incredibly tight and complex knots.

'What's he like when he's _not_ around the rest of us? You know, behind closed doors.'

She must have looked mortified at the question, as even Kanami started giggling.

'Oh Mimori, stop blushing! I didn't mean it like _that_. Just, you know. Ryuho's always so _uptight_ around people, around _us_, even after all this time.'

'I don't know, he's Ryuho.' She sat back on her heels, leaving aside the perfectly wrapped bundles. 'Not to sound flip or anything. But it's not like he suddenly changes when no one's looking, he's just _him_. He talks a little more, I suppose, but he's just not the wordy type. But he wasn't when he was younger, either, so not much has changed. He can be wonderfully sweet, you know, it's just in a very quiet way.'

Kanami gave her a knowing look, wise beyond her years as always. Cammy sighed, probably thinking about the ladies and lords in her favorite novels.

They were all alone, lost in their own thoughts, but it was so comforting to be back in the fold again – warm, loving, among friends. _You're certainly a saint_, Cammy's voice echoed in her head.

_No, not a saint, or anything close_, she said to herself. At the age of 18, she'd given up thoughts that Ryuho – shy and taciturn at 12 – would ever blossom into a particularly open, gregarious type. All these years later, it still made her ache to see him torture himself over things that had long ago been decided. But she loved him all the same, and he loved her – there was little more she could ask for, in the grand scheme of things: good friends, a toasty house, books, a satisfying (if sometimes maddening) job, and the man she had waited for all those years ago.

She did love this life, entirely independent of him – something she never could have imagined all those years ago. It _had_ all been worth it.

* * *

'Kazuma, what in the hell do you think you're doing?' Cougar had _almost, _despite the protest of mildly achy joints, been looking forward to a silent walk through a truly snowy landscape – the first he could remember seeing – and having Kazuma yowling beside him was putting a serious hitch in the plan.

'You're going to see that green-haired bastard, aren't you? Well, I'm coming _too_,' he declared indignantly. 'Gonna give him a piece of my mind, been _way_ too long since my fists were acquainted with his face.'

'Kazuma,' Cougar replied firmly. 'You are going to nothing of the sort.' Where was Kanami when you needed her, to give one of those wondrously effective speeches that always began: _Kazu-kun, I'm terribly disappointed … _

'I _am_, and you can't stop me.'

There was nothing good to come of a Ryuho-Kazuma redux, Aside from summer boxing matches – they were quite the draw for town festivals, Cougar always figured the audience realized they were witnessing something _truly _dangerous, a barely-controlled ferocity, and they loved it – the less time they spent in direct contact, the better.

His joints protesting, Cougar stopped. 'I'm serious. _Go home_. I'm sure our Kiryu-sama would be delighted to see you, and I don't need to be babysitting _two_ of you tonight.'

Kazuma glowered. Cougar rubbed his forehead – dealing with _the boys_, as he still called them, was enough to drive anyone crazy, especially when Cougar wanted to do nothing more than settle into Mimori's study and see what books she had brought back for him.

'Are you going to make this old man stand out in the snow for a few more hours?'

The ridiculousness of his life astounded him sometimes, and he could do nothing but throw his head back and laugh: herding chickens, standing in as Yuta-kun's jungle gym, herding semi-murderous _boys_. Of course, there were plenty of wondrous moments mixed in with the somewhat unbelievable – they were unbelievable in their own way: drinking wine and reading poetry to Mimori, watching snow – _snow!_ – pile up in the Lost Ground, strolling by the shore as if he hadn't a care in the world, serving as taster for Kanami's new recipes.

'What're _you_ laughing at?'

'Oh, Kazuma, my dear boy. Doesn't it ever strike you how … how … how positively_stupendous_thisallIS? This!' Cougar threw his arm out, gesturing at the landscape, so quiet and _peaceful_. 'Could you have imagined this a decade ago?'

Kazuma looked at him, perplexed, his good eye squinting a bit. Cougar was willing him with every fiber of his being to just _go home_.

'Aw, hell, old man, I hate when you go all mushy in the head like this. I'm gonna get out of this blasted cold.'

Cougar said a silent prayer to whatever deity's unseen hand had encouraged Kazuma's change of heart.

'But see if I don't give that asshole a piece of my mind tomorrow. Fuckin' jerk, scaring the daylights outta Mimori … I don't know why she still puts up with all that shit, you'd think she would ….' Kazuma was muttering to himself as he trudged back down the hill. _Crisis narrowly averted_. Cougar hoped this wouldn't be a Pyrrhic victory. In truth, he wasn't even sure why he was coming up here – it wasn't as if he and Ryuho had some deep connection. But it seemed like _someone_, besides their Lady Doctor-Veterinarian, ought to check on him. Pity the weather was so cold, and his joints were screaming – he hoped the man would be in a somewhat tractable mood and would just come back without too much fuss, so Cougar could tuck into bed with a few thick comforters and a new book.

_Alas_, he thought to himself. _Not tonight_. What was that poem, the one Mimori read for him haltingly, calling up schoolgirl's English that she hadn't used in years? _The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep_. He did so hope it wouldn't be _miles_.

But the woods _were_ lovely and dark, and the silver birch positively glowed, even in the low light. He never thought he would live to see the Lost Ground look like _this_, and it occurred to him that he had an entirely new understanding of why the old writers had spent so much ink composing snowy scenes: it really was as if the earth was wiping everything clean, and giving herself a fresh start.

Mimori often teased him that he spent so much time on abstract mental planes that he was a bit absent minded on this very concrete one. It was said with the greatest affection, but as he nearly tripped over something in the snow, he thought she maybe had a point, and spending a bit more time in the _here and now_ was perhaps not a bad idea.

'Straight.'

Well, there were worse things to nearly trip over than the very person one was seeking, that was for sure. Ryuho sounded exhausted, so tired he didn't even try to cover it up. Cougar could only recall a handful of times he'd heard him sound like this.

'Ryu.' Cougar looked down. Ryuho's shoulders were slumped, he was on his knees, snow dusting his shoulders, his hair. 'Aren't you freezing?'

Ryuho snorted derisively, the exhaustion disappearing from his voice and his bearing in an instant.

'_You_ of all people should know they trained us better than that.'

This was not going to be as easy as he had first thought. Cougar sighed, his joints protesting for the umpteenth time tonight.

Quiet. Oh, it was a lovely, lovely almost-silence – snow falling on snow falling on snow falling. He hated to break the quiet, but his bones were adamantly opposed to a minute longer than they had to be out here. He thought if the Lady Doctor-Veterinarian were here, she'd be herding him in faster than even _he_ could've managed in the old days.

'I'm not here to argue about previous training or lack thereof, Ryu.'

'No, I would suppose not.' Ryuho's shoulders slumped ever so slightly.

_The only other sound's the sweep …_ Mimori's voice in his head again: Cougar thought it was the most appropriate poem he had ever dug up for her to read, considering the current weather. _Of easy wind and downy flake_. He felt like he could almost compose his _own_ poetry, were it not for a semi-crazed, or totally depressed, former hero-villain at his feet.

'I really butchered it this time, didn't I.'

It was so quiet he barely caught it, wrapped up as he was in the sound of snow and the look of what little light filtered out from the clouds.

'Oh, I don't know, Ryu. I think she'd just like you home, safe and warm.'

What a ridiculous picture they must cut, he mused. _Where were the tourists lurking for a photo op when you needed them?_ Former heroes (one creaky, the other not), standing – or kneeling - around in near silence, letting snow pile up on their coats, on their hair. Not the stuff the legends were made of, that was for certain.

'Come on, it's freezing. You've done enough penance for tonight.'

Ryuho finally made eye contact, and though Cougar never fancied himself a seer or psychic – certainly no reader of people like Kanami – it was impossible to miss the deep sorrow in those red eyes. Cougar held out a hand, since for once – the first time he could ever remember - Ryuho looked like he was in desperate need of one.

* * *

She was halfway between sleep and consciousness when she heard the door to the bedroom open. She rolled over, blinking at the intrusion of light, but glad he had finally come home. She sat up, waiting for him to crawl into bed with her. Instead, he knelt at the edge and laid his head in her lap. 'Ryuho, what –'

She could feel his breath on her thigh. 'Forgive me,' he whispered. She had to smile a bit as she ran a hand through his hair. 'Forgive you for what?' she asked as lightly as she could.

'Everything. Everything I've ever done to you.' He sounded completely and utterly miserable.

'Oh, Ryuho,' she sighed. 'Don't do this to yourself. Not tonight.' She leaned down to kiss his temple. 'Besides,' she murmured with as much levity as she could muster at this hour, under these circumstances. 'You're sounding dangerously close to being one of the wayward knights in one of Cammy's romance novels.'

Did he need to apologize? She'd asked herself that question many times, but on the balance, she felt that they shared equal blame for many of the missteps along the way. She had long ago stopped berating herself for her youthful naïveté, arriving the age of 18, hoping to reconnect with a childhood sweetheart. But she couldn't stop believing that for all Ryuho's cold-shouldering and rudeness, it was simply part of the person he had become in her absence, and if anything, her arrival put him on heightened alert. His cool, clinical response was a logical, if not ideal, reaction to his situation.

'I knew what I was getting myself into a long time ago,' she said.

'I know.'

'And I still would've waited for you forever.' And it was true, she would have. Whether that was right or wrong, she couldn't say – but it was just a fact of her life as she had made it. The sun rose in the east, set in the west, and she would've waited until it blew up and the universe was no more. 'I just …. It's OK to lean on me a little, I won't break.'

A sigh. She continued stroking his hair. That green hair, the color of an emerald.

'You could've told me they came again.' She wanted nothing more than to be able to enfold him totally, press him close, shield him for a bit from himself.

'Do you have any idea how _awful_ it is? It's lists. _Lists_. Spreadsheets. And then they present you with … with what they think are just _things_.'

It hurt to think of him opening that little box, the remnants of a former life – well-loved remnants at that.

'They handed me a box full of things that they assumed were worthless, because they hadn't inventoried them or had them appraised or anything else.'

He was practically vibrating with anger, and she wanted to do nothing more than make it all better, even though she knew she couldn't. She supposed this was how Cougar had often felt, listening to her.

'And do you know, in there was every letter she had ever written him, and a good number that he had written her. There was Zetsui's collar, which I hadn't seen in years, and one very expensive ring.' He gave a bitter laugh. 'I suppose I'm lucky they missed it on their inventories, or were too lazy to check apparently worthless things carefully. Otherwise they would've sold that, too, or given it to someone's wife.'

'Oh, Ryuho.'

What was there to say – or, perhaps the better question was, what was there to say that hadn't been said before? So she just continued running her fingers through his hair, and hoped that his heart would stop beating so furiously.

It hurt her heart to see him like this, the unvarnished emotions under his usual imperturbable detachment – made all the worse because she knew she could say nothing to calm him. There was nothing to do but stroke his hair and wait for him to talk, or not talk, whatever he felt like. She just hoped he'd _stay_.

'I just … the idea of something happening to you, I can't – I'd never forgive myself.'

'Ryuho,' she said as quietly, as calmly as she could manage. 'It's well and truly over, all of that. If I were to drop dead tomorrow, it would be no fault of yours. And you know, Cougar always says to me – _I will be here as long as I am able_.' She wondered what he saw, as he stared at the wall. 'Worrying about it just ruins the here and now.'

_And didn't we once promise each other to think of nothing but?_

It was a promise neither of them could keep, true. To think nothing of the past or future, but only of the _now_. The past curled around them like smoke, impossible to grasp but equally impossible get rid of entirely, and it was difficult not to engage in games of _what then?_ Even talking of fruit trees to plant, or chicken coops to expand, or the smallest of trips required admitting a _future_ together, a tomorrow to fret about.

His heartbeat was finally slowing a bit. She had no idea how long they'd been sitting here, it alternately felt like minutes and hours. Mimori wished he'd just come to bed; there was something comforting about the ritual of winding themselves around each other and the feeling of being almost impossibly close.

Her mind was wandering, thinking of youthful missteps and emeralds and her mother and Kanami's beef stew and Cougar's laugh and Ryuho's eyes – flitting from topic to topic, finding it impossible to settle on anything in particular. With a start, she forced herself back awake, her eyes protesting the low light from the study. They must have been here longer than she realized, and it finally felt as if his heart was beating with a slow, regular rhythm. She had been fading in and out of sleep, she realized. Mimori forced her mouth to form words and her tongue to cooperate, the mildest physical effort seeming terribly difficult.

'Ryuho?' She just hoped he'd respond.

'Milady?'

She felt better, now that he was teasing her with hyper-formal, antiquated language. _Only the children of two aristocrats would find this amusing, _she thought. He must have calmed down.

'My lord,' she declared as imperiously as she could manage. He smiled against her thigh, probably despite himself, knowing Ryuho. 'I do believe that is time to retire for the evening.'

He looked at her for the first time, the faintest of smiles playing at the edge of his lips. She flashed him as devilish a look as she could manage, though she doubted it was particularly effective at the moment. But it was worth a pathetic attempt just to see him smile at her.

* * *

They lay together for a long time after, not saying anything. He noticed the clock inching towards 4 AM and somewhat regretfully broke the silence; it was nice just to _be_ like this, especially after the past few hours.

'It's late, don't you have to get up in a few hours?'

She rolled over and arched her back, stretching and looking content. 'No, I took the week off. Do you realize,' she said, sitting up, 'that when we first got here I considered myself lucky if I could take a day off, never mind a month and a half?' She looked out the sliver of window still uncovered to the falling snow. 'And now I have the luxury of taking vacations. I suppose things have changed a lot here ….'

Ryuho thought back to the town – no, village, really – he had stumbled into. _Has it really been six years?_ It seemed everything on the not-so-Lost Ground was growing by leaps and bounds; he could only imagine what ever-increasing traffic with the Mainland would do. Still, there was something charming and a bit antiquated about the way of life people _here_ had settled into – as if turning away from all the wonders of glossy, sterile modern high rises and office buildings. He didn't think it was such a bad thing.

After all, there was something to be said for truly fresh eggs in the morning, he thought, among other things.

'You want breakfast tomorrow?'

'Of course I do,' she laughed. 'Omelets and pastries and tea and … let me think … _everything_.'

He quirked an eyebrow at her. 'Everything?'

She smiled as she ran her hand over his chest. 'Maybe not everything …. Whatever you feel like making as long as I can eat in bed.' She gave him one of her wonderfully coquettish – if very sleepy – looks and settled back beside him. He took that as an invitation to nuzzle into her neck and press closer. She brought her arms up to run her hands through his hair and over his shoulders. He'd missed her, missed the patterns of life they had settled into together.

'Mimori?'

'Hm?'

'Tell me about going home?' He could feel her chest rise and fall in a silent laugh. He loved hearing her talk late in the evenings – ramble, really; it always soothed him enough to allow him to sleep. It was a sometimes ritual before they fell into slumber, she would lie under him or on top of him or beside him and talk until one or the other of them was asleep. Something about her drowsy voice, her words running together, the way she described things – he wasn't sure what it was, but he loved it.

'What about it?'

'Anything,' he mumbled into her neck. He was so glad to have her close again, her scent mingled with his own, her skin against his. So she talked, and Ryuho would've been hard pressed to tell anyone what she was talking about – houses and parties and parents and gardens. Food; good wine; something …. Something. It didn't really matter, because as he lay draped on her, he just wanted to feel her presence. _Please no dreams tonight, just her just her just her. _She ran her fingers through his hair and he could do nothing but run his hand down her side slowly; anything more felt like too much effort.

He felt himself sliding towards sleep; it felt like floating these days, a beautiful sensation a bit like falling, and he just wanted to sink into sleep, into her …. Not like years ago when he would just shut his eyes to the world and force himself to rest.

And then it was if his heart stopped – a string of words murmured like the rest, but so very, very different. He drew himself up a little to look at her while he parsed what she had just said. She just continued stroking his hair, breathing deep and slow, though he noted that her heart was beating faster. She was beautiful, set back against the pillows with her hair spread around her, just watching him.

He tilted his head to look at her, as if another vantage point would give him insight onto what she had just told him. It didn't, so he rested his head back on her chest and listened to her heart beat. He had decided long ago that he would never be able to explain how just feeling his skin against hers grounded him; he supposed years of defining himself through physical action made touch the most important sense for him. He shifted and rolled them over, pulling Mimori down so she rested on his upper arm in lieu of a pillow. She looked at him through wisps of hair, and he brushed them away, unsure of what to say. So he smiled a little uncertainly.

She gave him a sleepy smile back. 'You ok?' she mumbled, a bit of worry flitting across her face even as she looked like she was struggling to keep her eyes open. Fearing that words would really fail him – more than usual – he just nodded, hoping that would put her at ease.

'We'll talk about it tomorrow,' she whispered, her movements very slow. 'I'm sorry, I'm just very …' she paused to yawn, 'sleepy.'

He still wasn't very good with words, doubted if he ever would be again (had he ever been?), though he had his moments of absolute clarity and being able to voice exactly what he wanted to say. He usually just held her, or pulled her close, or took her hand – because it was easier than talking. Sometimes he kissed her, which is what he did now – he loved kissing her when she was drowsy, as those kisses were soft and slow and sweet.

She pressed closer to him after he finally let her lips go, and he listened as her breathing became slow and deep and regular. He wondered if she could just feel all those things he wanted to tell her, if kisses were good enough. Ryuho propped himself up to take hold of her hand that was loosely pressed between them – her other was curled around her pendant – and kissed the thin skin of her wrist as he pulled the covers up over them. He let his lips linger there, feeling the warmth, proof that her heart beat and she was still here. Not going anywhere. Strong and alive and warm. And next to _him_, sleeping.

* * *

_somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond_  
_any experience, your eyes have their silence:_  
_in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,_  
_or which i cannot touch because they are too near …_

_nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals_  
_the power of your intense fragility: whose texture_  
_compels me with the color of its countries,_  
_rendering death and forever with each breathing …. _e. e. cummings

Other snips from the Samual Butler translation of the _Iliad_ & Robert Frost, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening."


End file.
